(30 Mar 2023, 8:14 pm)Malarkey wrote If you look at the fleet on paper the large majority of it is either at Mid-Life or approaching Life-Expired if your looking at anything purchased before 2015 and I would agree in a huge order being needed to replace what they have currently....particularly at Deptford which has become the scrapyard for old buses following ULEZ being introduced in Newcastle.

Furthermore since 2019/2020 when there was a last a sizeable order only 9 new buses have been purchased with support of Government Grants of course for the Yutong E12's on the Q3, everything else that has come in has been from elsewhere in the Go-Ahead Group yet we still have those Ex-Brighton Omnidekka's hanging on for dear life doing circuits on the 93/94 because there are that many Euro 6 Buses VOR at Riverside the Loops are being allocated here, there and everywhere.

I'm not sure age is the only reason mind. Arriva Blyth's Gemini's are older than what's mentioned here and have been rat arsed on Blyth Expresses for their whole life yet there's only 4 / 31 been VOR today and only 1 / 11 of the Pulsar's.

I'm not one for spreading rumours but there's been a lot of talk from driver's, at Deptford in particular, about not fixing things and botching things. There's only so many times you can botch things before they become serious problems.

There's also noticeable trends that certain depots are worse than others; Riverside and Darlington (Arriva) in particular. Anything that seems to turn up here from Darlington is a wreck.