Western Greyhound - History

History

Western Greyhound was established in January 1998 to take over the three vehicles and the contracts of Cornishman Coaches, whose owner was retiring. The new company's managing director was Mark Howarth who had previously managed Western National, the local Badgerline Group (later First Group) operation, and he was joined by Robin Orwell who had also worked for Badgerline. Within a few weeks R&M Coaches, another local operator, also sold out to Western Greyhound which brought one more vehicle and an office near Newquay bus station. This left one other independent bus operator in the town, Pleasure Travel Minicoaches, but this went out of business and the contracts were also taken on by Western Greyhound.

The company expanded beyond contract and private hire work with their first public timetabled services on 14 December 1998. These two routes (592 and 594) were contracts awarded by Cornwall County Council and were operated by three new minibuses. Further contracts were awarded in 2001, and double deck buses were added to the fleet to operate school routes given up by Western National. Since then many more routes have been added to the network including some from Plymouth Citybus and DAC Coaches in the south east, and Hookways in the north. There have also been new routes instigated, such as Newquay to Bodmin, linking the two largest towns in the county hitherto not connected by bus, and a coastal route from Newquay to St Ives.

The expanding fleet needed to operate these additional services saw the company move to a larger depot at nearby Summercourt. Initially it used established facilities there, but in 2004 a new purpose-built depot and offices were constructed. In the same year the old Newquay bus station was closed and replaced by a new facility. This is owned by the County Council but is managed on their behalf by Western Greyhound, and their town centre shop was moved into new premises on the site. The company maintains its bus stops and uses satellite tracking to monitor its fleet.

The company won the Independent Operator of the Year at the UK Bus Awards in 2006, was runner up in 2007, but won it again in both 2008 and 2009. Mark Howarth himself was elected president of the Omnibus Society in 2010, having previously been the Chairman of the Confederation of Passenger Transport South West Region.