(04 Oct 2021, 7:56 pm)Cock Robin wrote They're going to need a hell of a lot of new buses in 5 or so years time when the Pulsars and Temsas need replacing,  not to mention deckers and Solos. They haven't had continous investment like GNE and Stagecoach.

Must have missed the continuous fleet renewal at Stagecoach mind. They're in a worse place atm imo with buses which need withdrawing now nevermind in 5 years and there's nothing planned. Not to mention the majority of the fleet haven't been refurbished since new and are extremely outdated, regardless to what people thought of the Arriva refurbs.

They've also got an awful lot of 08/58/09/60/11/61 buses which will need renewing at the same and since some of them are cheap MAN rubbish they'll need replacing aswell.

Arriva has always ran it like that though, with a similar scenario between 2001 - 2007 where nothing was really ordered except it was much much worse than it is now with the leaking Scania's at Blyth which we're shot, Olympians still in the smartie interior and stuff like this https://farm9.static.flickr.com/8142/763...e9fefc.jpg running on frontline services. People would have a field day on here if it was back then.

Not to mention ex Darts from anywhere they could find them, Metroriders everywhere which were completely shot and Prestige's which the less said is better.