This sort of thing happens all the time in South Yorkshire, one area I have a bit of experience/knowledge of - quite often happens that another operator wins the evening tender for a route operated by First during the day. First will then operate the evening service commercially, voiding the tender, just to stop other companies getting work. Stagecoach do the same thing.

In this case it could be interesting, as the tender is not paid for by Nexus, it's by Great Park themselves.

As Kuyoyo mentioned the same thing was done by Go North East in Peterlee in October when they lost a lot of the tendered services to another operator, suddenly they became commercially viable and now almost the entire East Durham network is commercially operated mileage (with a few exceptions).