One of dumbest moves in the transition from United to Arriva was the closure of the depots at Loftus and Whitby; something I feel has happened, cause problems in other parts of the north east. Tees and District held on to Loftus depot and Whitby as, I think, some form of out-station for the vehicles required on services in that area. It worked. Along comes Arriva. Loftus, thus Whitby are on the hit list and all services, vehicles and staff (that wanted to) moved to Dormanstown; staff and drivers remained at Whitby with a compound on the outskirts of the town where the vehicles, essentially a part of the main Dormanstown fleet, stabled. To my knowledge only limited maintenance, cleaning is undertaken there with vehicles working through to the main depot at Dormanstown. Does it work? In Arriva's eyes it must, the cost of the operation will have been slashed at the expense of what was previous; Arriva always work to the tightest of margins at the expense of everything else. Why pay for an expensive depot facility when a piece of land and a shed will suffice and then why worry about the passengers? Which nicely brings me on to breakdowns, especially in the case of the long distance routes that work into the Whitby area, in summer carrying large numbers of passengers, many of them tourists and first time service users? We've read elsewhere about the vehicles used on these and those long delays whilst engineers attend and replacement buses sort. Does it work ? Short answer is no.