First Potteries - History

History

The company began life as Potteries Motor Traction or PMT. As part of the government of the day's process of privatising the state-owned National Bus Company, PMT Limited was created on 12 December 1986 when it was purchased by its management and employees from NBC. The team leading PMT's buyout were managing director Mike Moors, traffic manager Steve Ellis, chief engineer Barry Parkinson and company secretary Nigel Barrett.

Expansion came quickly for PMT Limited, and indeed it had commenced operations outside its traditional North Staffordshire area a little over six weeks prior to purchase from NBC. 25 October 1986 - the day bus services in the UK were deregulated - had seen the establishment of a small outstation in the town of Crewe in neighbouring Cheshire. This was followed by a venture into Merseyside with the opening of a Red Rider outstation at Moreton on the Wirral peninsula. A small operation in Leeds commenced in 1988, followed a year later by the winning of tenders in the West Midlands. This led to vehicles being outstation at a haulage company's yard in Willenhall.

On 6 February 1990 PMT acquired the Wirral, Ellesmere Port and Chester operations of Crosville from the Drawlane Group but not the Manchester, Runcorn and Warrington operations of Crosville which were integrated into Drawlane's North Western/associated Bee Line Buzz Company divisions. PMT was later purchased by the Badgerline Group plc before they in turn merged with GRT Holdings plc and formed First Group PLC, this sale including Crosville's operations in Chester and Wirral. First Potteries now operates mainly urban services in Stoke and surrounding towns, along with its network of services in the city of Chester through the purchase or ChesterBus in 2007. This business was integrated with the existing First Chester & The Wirral which already ran a network of services in Wirral and Chester before the purchase of ChesterBus.