First Potteries

First Potteries

Slogan	Transforming Travel
Parent	First Group plc
Headquarters	Adderley Green, Stoke-on-Trent
Locale	North West, West Midlands
Service area	Stoke-on-Trent, The Potteries, Stafford, Chester, Crewe, Wirral
Service type	Bus
Hubs	Stoke-on-Trent
Fleet	365 Vehicles
Fuel type	Diesel
Operator	First Group
Chief executive	Ken Poole
Website	First Staffordshire and South Cheshire Homepage

First Potteries Limited (formerly known as First PMT Ltd, and the successor company of Potteries Motor Traction) is a company based in Stoke-on-Trent that operates buses in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and Crewe.

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. The Chester & Wirral operations were sold to Stagecoach in December 2012.

Liveries

The traditional colours of the PMT fleet were red and cream. During NBC ownership in the 1970s and 1980s, poppy red and white livery was used. Following privatisation, the livery became red and yellow with the fleetname in a 'zipper' logo. Despite this, several variations were introduced to suit individual routes - Silverdale Shuttle and Bradwell Shuttle, which saw the red replaced with blue; Hospitalslink, a scheme used exclusivley on a handful of minibuses and which was green-based; and Birches Head Townabout, again a minibus operation and which received a yellow and orange livery. Additionally, a pair of minibuses gained a purple and yellow variant to promote the Ball Green to Tunstall service.

All these liveries have now been completely superseded by the standard First corporate 'barbie' colours (pink, white and blue). Just five buses remain in passenger-carrying service which were delivered during the days of red and yellow, the remainder having either been acquired second-hand and/or received in First's corporate scheme.

Administration

In 2010, First Group changed the management structure of First Potteries. The Staffordshire area operations are now part of First Midlands (which consists of First Wyvern, First Northampton and First Leicester) with its "group" office at Adderley Green, Stoke on Trent. The Cheshire and Merseyside area depots however became of First Manchester Ltd, which includes First Greater Manchester.

Although this has happened, the legal name remains First Potteries Ltd, but with the address of regional head office in Chelmsford, Essex.

Crewe depot has now shut and has transferred vehicles and services to Newcastle depot. Newcastle depot has accepted planning permission to build a new depot at Milehouse in Newcastle, work is yet to start.

Fleet List

The majority of the current fleet is mainly of Scania manufacturer with Wright bodywork and Dennis Darts with various bodywork although this may change as newer buses are cascading to the fleet in late 2012 following various cascades of the First vehicles purchased for the 2012 London Olympic Games

See also

• List of bus operators of the United Kingdom

External links

• First Chester & Wirral Homepage
• Stoke on Trent Bus Information website