(24 Nov 2020, 12:15 pm)Jamie M wrote If you have a battered old nearly 20 year old decker that can be converted to euro 6, who's going to spend the thousands of pounds to it, in addition to all the reliability, rot, corrosion and part issues you get with vehicles of this age? If I was a council, I'd not want to oblige.

Euro is an emissions standard, not one for efficiency. Though, with newer vehicles both go hand in hand.

And those vehicles which are a lot newer than that, who have parts in ready supply?

It's not that I agree with the grants funding upgrades or additional handouts supporting multi-million pound plc's to run their vehicles on an evening. Far from it. 
It's the hypocrisy and contradictions we see coming out from operators. 

They want funding, grants and support - but not government regulation.
They will use the pr teams to spin how wonderful their vehicles are and how they're loaded with fancy gadgets - but not mention that there were a fair few pounds chucked their way to help with the process.
They tell us how they look after passengers and make their experience better - but don't run a bus to get people home. Unless there's a bit of funding to help them achieve that.

Getting back to the emissions part of the convo, I'm surprised we've not seen anything like we saw with the National's and their re-engine programme.
I've no idea how viable that was at the time and whether the cost of the re-engines were justified versus the age and subsequent use, but I wouldn't mind seeing if anything was being explored elsewhere.
Or, if manufacturers are just wanting operators to spend the cash on a new bus instead.