Lancashire United - History

History

In 2001, Stagecoach sold its former Ribble operations in Blackburn, Hyndburn, Clitheroe and Bolton to the Blazefield Group after a series of reasonably high-profile industrial disputes. The resultant company was named Lancashire United for buses operating in the Ribble Valley, Hyndburn, Bolton and Blackburn and a separate operating company, Burnley & Pendle Travel was set up to operate buses in that area (see Burnley & Pendle). Investment commenced in new vehicles almost immediately, with over 30 brand new single-decker buses arriving in September of that year, displacing Stagecoach's much older models.

A number of service revisions followed with many marginal services withdrawn and a number of school contracts were terminated. Much of this work, mainly contracted to Lancashire County Council, was picked up by Northern Blue. A focus was then made on developing high quality trunk routes, namely the 152, 225 & Hyndburn Circulars. Also later the X1.

Later, in 2002, the Bolton garage was sold on to independent operator Blue Bus run by Roger Jarvis, who eventually sold out to Arriva in 2005. The contracted services in the Clitheroe area were given up and the garage was sold to a housing developer. Most of the Clitheroe contracted work passed into the hands of the Northern Blue bus company. The Blazefield Group became part of the multi-national transport Transdev group in 2006. The Clitheroe services were operated by LUL for a second time through the Northern Blue takeover, however these passed out of LUL's service profile in June 2008. The original Blackburn garage acquired from Ribble remains in use.

From 26 March 2011 the Manor Sutton Street fleet gradually transferred into the former Blackburn Transport depot at Intack, although the depot remained open for fleet refurbishments and repaints, the former tram sheds at Intack are currently being demolished and the site will be resurfaced to accommodate the extra fleet transferred from the Mannor Sutton St site, Blackburn with Darwen Borough council purchased the land in March 2011 and it is currently being leased back to Transdev until their new Intack Station is completed. As of 28 August 2011 operations at Mannor Sutton St have now ceased and the entire fleet are now based at the Intack depot, on 28 August 2011 an event was held at the Mannor Sutton St depot to mark the end after 83 years.