South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach - Sale To Rotala

Sale To Rotala

In 2007 the bus side of the company was sold to Rotala Group subsidiary Flights Hallmark. The sale included 68 buses for the price of £1.26 million and the right to operate the routes they were used on for a further £600,000. The takeover was completed in stages and everything was finalized by the 31st March 2008. It was stated at the time that the assets being acquired had an annual turnover of £4.2 million pounds.

The business was slowly rebranded as Wessex Connect, however the majority of the vehicles that Rotala purchased stayed in South Gloucestershire livery. They were gradually disposed of as and when Rotala were able to replace them with suitable low floor vehicles. Most of the low floor vehicles from the SGBC fleet were painted white and ended up with Rotala group company Central Connect.

After the sale to Rotala, SGBC were left with school services, the 462 commuter service and the Axa 101 service, that both interworked with school services. The fleet has been continually updated since the sale in 2007 with more modern coaches and further second hand buses. All coaches are now white with a new South Gloucestershire fleet name in silver, and school vehicles are gradually being painted into an all over yellow scheme inspired by the purchase of a former Plymouth Citybus school vehicle. The blue livery is no longer a familiar site on the streets of Bristol, as now a large proportion of the bus fleet carry the overall yellow livery.