(10 Aug 2024, 12:01 am)R852 PRG wrote But I still maintain that the rot established itself in the Kevin Carr era. Carr himself was little more than a custodian of the business, and I don't believe there really was any plan to try and grow it beyond aimlessly continuing the branding initiative Peter Huntley introduced, and buying whatever the cheapest vehicles available at the time were in the name of regenerating the fleet, irrespective of their suitability, such as those B5TLs being ordered for the X9/X10. More damning, arguably, was the appointment of senior managers who were considered a safe pair of hands, the natural choice for the job, who knew the business (more in the sense of familiarity with its setting than competence), but were in the same token the lifeblood of the decline which characterised this period. One wonders what could have been, had Huntley not left over the Hexham/Ashington fiasco. He was just 55 when he died, and, had he never moved on - which would be understandable at that age - he might well have remained Managing Director up until the pandemic, or perhaps just before, if we assumed a typical retirement age. And if Gilbert was still meant to be in the summer of 2018, just imagine the business he might have inherited. 

I honestly believe Gilbert gets an unfair hearing. My own little revisionist history of Go North East is that he was dealt a bad hand by the pandemic and ultimately was just a convenient scapegoat for the years of mismanagement that predated his arrival, his insistence on pressing ahead with ill-thought-out concepts which the circumstances of the pandemic couldn't accommodate notwithstanding. I might have preferred to see him go down with the ship, as a point of integrity more than anything else, especially amidst a depot closure, but I think he genuinely cared about Go-Ahead values and sought to develop the business. I also think Gilbert is unfairly typecast as something of a one trick pony, but this is a point of criticism you can irrefutably extend to Featham's approach:

1. Reorganisation of local management structure, introducing additional layers of management in a top-heavy bureaucracy
2. Comprehensive review of drivers' conditions, all while spoiling for a bloodbath
3. Buy drivers out of their conditions to improve scheduling efficiency, engaging the union in said bloodbath
4. Overpromote grads - who generally know bugger all about bugger all - in the name of developing the leaders of the future, who would in any other circumstance be labelled egregious underperformers and afforded no second chances

Given the existing comprehension barriers, rigidity of thought, and apparent inability to think beyond a prescribed set of instructions, at this point, they might as well move local management - both at SLT and depot level - offshore, and see if we're actually any worse off. And throw in the existing commercial team for good measure, for their fecklessness and insubordination. There'd be a guaranteed cost saving, at least.

To be fair to Martijn, he did try to sort out the X9/X10 issue before COVID struck and no doubt we would've probably seen a fleet of 6-cylinder StreetDecks or Scania E400MMCs for the X9/X10.

However, whilst his ways and thinking would've likely worked pre-pandemic, he should've 'stuck with the basics' and GNE might have rode the storm out like Arriva Northumbria did instead of making lots of cuts!

Also....his comments about 'right vehicle for right route'.....was an opportunity to sort the X21 out and could've changed Derwentside to keep the low height boards to a minimum. But issue was still unresolved with Volvo B5TL's that were ragged on the X9/X10 allocated instead.