(09 Dec 2023, 6:03 pm)deanmachine wrote It wouldn't have been as bad if there wasn't a need to steal buses for Newcastle's CAZ, Shields would have had a pretty new fleet, ditto with Stockton. Sunderland is getting investment now with the electric Es, but that won't help too much if they're binning off all their gas buses. I'm sure the people at the Wheatsheaf will want new buses for these places, but it must be a pain trying to justify the investment to their masters in Perth.

I do genuinely wonder if the ZEBRA funding is actively hurting this, as they'll only open their wallets if they're matched or more by the Government.

To be fair, I'd just imagine there'd be none at all. I believe the government only fund the difference anyway. It probably doesn't help that certain councils up here shout every other week they're taking buses back into public hands either mind.

It probably doesn't help that both Arriva and GNE made a massive investment around 2009 so technically very few buses are actually life expired and don't really need replacing and the COVID PVR reductions helped removed the worst offenders with no investment at all. GNE and Arriva both massively benefitted from that getting arid of their Mercs / Omnicities / Versa's and Solos between them with very little investment.