(09 Oct 2022, 10:30 pm)Starscream wrote A brand new depot would have a design life of 50+ years. Materials costing more simply doesn't cut it as a believable reason why they have chosen not to replace like for like. A far more plausible reason is that they genuinely don't foresee a return to pre-Covid revenues, and they have also looked at the politics of this country and the geopolitics of electric vehicle production, and concluded that, for the next few years at least, only a lunatic would make an investment of this type.
The thing is they're having to rebuild Blyth and extend Ashington to fit all the buses in as both depots as they are aren't big enough so the money wasted doing that would be a long way to building the new depot anyway. Not to mention the sale of Jesmond which has just 'vanished' and Blyth being prime land for sale aswell in a spot lined for redevelopment so they may have to move anyway. It seems an awful waste of money spending anything on it.
Speaking of that does anywhere know where this 'tempory' site is as there's no way both Blyth and Ashington can take everything they are as far as I'm aware as they are.
(09 Oct 2022, 10:52 pm)L469 YVK wrote In hindsight though going back nearly 10 years and with an Alnwick outstation, would a merger between Blyth and Ashington with a depot around Bedlington or Cambois not have been a good option?
Arriva do have a fairly strong local network in North Tyneside. If the shoe was on GNE's foot right now wanting to close Percy Main and move PM's operations to Riverside, they'd have good reason to with only the 19/41/41A left.
But it doesn't make sense Arriva shutting shop in Newcastle & North Tyneside.
Nah don't think Percy Main would be that good. There's nothing really around it only the 54, 306/308 only going anywhere near it. Cramlington imo would be better suited imo, same as Belington having the same problems. Ashington is in a good spot imo ideal for both the Morpeth and Ashington expresses.