EYMS loose the Priory Park Park and Ride

The Hull Daily Mail has published an article saying it expects the new contract to operate Hull's Priory Park Park and Ride service (numbered 701) to be awarded to London based social enterprise, Hackney Community Transport, which trades as CT Plus. (This news was also posted on the East Yorkshire Buses Yahoo Group last week).

The Priory Park scheme opened in 2003 and it has been operated by EYMS under tender to Hull City Council since then. Hull City Council also funded the Walton Street scheme in Hull until earlier this year when EYMS took over the operation commercially after the council pulled the funding.

There already seems to be some local anger as to why Hull City Council are not supporting local businesses in the recession, though the council point out the need to balance quality and value for money.

Hackney Community Transport (HCT) operates in London, and also in West Yorkshire where it provides schools and AccessBus services for WYPTE. Their move into Hull gives the city a third operator of sufficient size to provide some serious competition for EYMS and Stagecoach, something lost when Veolia sold their Hull operations to EYMS earlier this year. I would guess HCT will be looking to scale up their Hull operations over time, through either schools, mobility, social services and/or local bus contracts.