For those of you unfortunate enough to be flying back into the UK’s, ahem, best airport, Manchester, from your winter sun and ski trips during the Christmas period, you might have noticed a field of gold….er, yellow, under your plane as you came into land.
For TfGM, in the run-up to the T3 live date, needed somewhere to temporarily store their new purchases so aquired use of one of the JetParks car parks of the airport to transform into a mini bus depot. Rows and rows of Volvos and Enviros made it look like a car sales lot. This depot was hopefully cheaper than those compulsorarily purchased for the transition. But that wasn’t enough – various Territorial Army centres around Manchester were turned into impromtu bus dumps, with one or two still being in use with buses subsequently freed up by the new fleet needing somewhere to go whilst their fate is decided/a buyer is found for them.
A FOI request by a member of a Bee Network enthusiast’s Facebook group to TfGM enquiring about the property costs of the rollout has revealed the exact costs involved.
| Depot | Price |
|---|---|
| Oldham | £5,332,080.17 |
| Ashton | £3,320,012.67 |
| Hyde Road | £15,361,184.67 |
| Queens Road | £6,427,146.67 |
| Sharston | £9,121,316.67 |
| Wythenshawe | £868,992.67 |
| Prices inclusive of all legal fees and SDLT |
A mysterious entry for ‘Princess Parkway’ was a bargain at £156,780.08. I think this is likely to the graffiti covered driver’s canteen at Southern Cemetery. Perhaps similar facilities can be established at Piccadilly (might be a slightly harder task after TfGM decided to abandon the Travelshop there).
Stagecoach came off very well from these transactions – bagging themselves a cool £27.959m in total!
A few depots seem to have been omitted, at least from the screenshots posted. Bolton Weston Street we know came in at at an absolutely eye-watering £30m, does TfGM not want this being known?
Wigan is likely omitted due to it being leased. Bolton Folds Road, Eccles and Rochdale are all operator-owned as they operate SLSCs, not a ‘large contract’ which comes with buildings (owned and maintained by TfGM) and buses. However, Stockport’s 2 Daw Bank depots were missing off the list – perhaps TfGM didn’t feel the need to CPO them as Stagecoach were lucky to win the large franchise package based there.
In a snippet of good news for yours truly, it seems like someone at TfGM Towers does actually read this diatribe I splurge on the internet. As I suggested in September 2023(!!!) a ‘Licence for Greater Manchester‘ is being introduced by the Bee operators. Not as thorough as I hoped for, I do hope that it doesn’t make it easier for nefarious/maniacal managers with a vendetta against individuals using this licence system to punish further by sharing info on disciplinary actions between operators – major/safety/serious offences are fair game, but silly petty dismissals and tidbits are unfair. More disection when I can be bothered.