Tuesday 29 November 2022

NEWSFLASH: First finally pulls the plug on Southampton

First announced today that they are closing their City Red operation in Southampton. The final day of running will be Saturday 18th February 2023. All of their routes in the city will be withdrawn, with the exception of their Solent Ranger X4 and X5 services, which are run by their Fareham depot, which is unaffected by the move. 


Go Ahead's Bluestar, who will have a near monopoly, are already planning a network of replacement routes.


They will no doubt be helped by recent experience in Bournemouth, where Yellow Buses collapsed at the end of August and Go Ahead's More stepped in with 48 hours notice to successfully replace most of Yellow's routes. Bluestar have a bit more notice here, so there should be no gaps in service.


This move by First brings to an end almost 150 years of history, as their current operation is the direct successor of the Southampton Tramways Company, initially running horse-drawn trams from 1879 before coming under council control in 1898 and eventual conversion to electric trams. After the second world war, buses gradually replaced the trams, but the council-owned Southampton City Transport still had a monopoly on most routes within the city boundary. Buses outside of Greater London and Northern Ireland were deregulated in 1986, which meant competition was now allowed. In 1993, what was then known as Southampton CityBus was sold to its employees. They gave in to temptation in 1997, as First swooped in to wave a bunch of tenners under their noses and local ownership of our city's buses came to an end.

Since then, it's been a sad, long and slow decline.

The first major blow was in 2001, when the University of Southampton, unhappy at how First was serving their students and staff, decided to subsidise its own network of routes, which became Unilink. That made many First routes on the Portswood corridor become less and less viable. They were gradually cut back until they were eventually withdrawn (save for the Townhill Park route, which stumbles on), leaving a huge hole in their coverage of the city. When I was growing up in Swaythling in the 90s, First had a bus every 10 minutes to the city centre. Decades of mismanagement saw First eventually abandon Swaythling completely in September 2015.

Here's how First's network looked when this blog first launched back in 2009:


There have been some bizarre cutbacks, with First withdrawing routes, declaring them to be unviable, only for Bluestar to immediately pick them up and find them so viable that they are still running them to this day. Evidence: Bluestar 7 to Sholing and to Lordshill via Oakley Road, literally cobbled together over the years out of routes that First had simply given up on and stopped caring about.

Around this time, First lost interest in those routes that were kept running by council subsidy. Filling major gaps in the commercial network, most of them are now with Xelabus.

Here's their network in summer 2015:


By 2019, this was all that remained:

Much the same as their current network, which runs until 18th February 2023:


The main difference between the last two images is the addition of route 1 to Calmore which is a futile almost exact duplicate of Bluestar 12.

For more details of First's long and inevitable demise in our city, see this blog's previous posts. There's an index in the right-hand panel on the desktop version. We've been going since 2009, so we've managed to document a lot of the damage they've caused.


Looking to the future, Bluestar will now be in charge of the whole commercial bus network in Southampton. Good for the inter-validity of network tickets across the city. Not necessarily so good for the price of those tickets: with the absence of competition, Bluestar can and probably will raise fares significantly. We'll be watching and reporting.

We of course feel sorry for First's workforce, the best of which will almost certainly be picked up by Bluestar, and wish them well for the future. To First's management, who have never truly understood or cared about this city: good riddance.










55 comments:

  1. Disgusted by the way Farce Bus have desicrated the services in Southampton, Hopefully this will now see Bluestar push into Gosport and Fareham, Farce do not deserve to be in charge of a public service. No doubt the managers will all be safe after this though.

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    1. Never really showed any interest in Southampton anyway.

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  2. Their interest went as far as pulling up a Bluestar network map and going “we’ll do that route, that’ll show them”. Pathetic

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  3. Xelabus X9 and X10 to cease operating from March 2023

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  4. Could be interesting as First 28 to Whiteley finally gets to move "up the road" to Botley station in Jan 23 with help from developers money & HCC. As x9/x10 being pulled by Xelabus I can see the 28 maybe being morphed into some weird x9/x10/28 amalgamation by HCC. Couls be First coming into Soton another way. Speculation of course, but anything is up for grabs now. Bluestar could get into Fareham through the 28 which will recreate just a tadge of the old First/SBL 26 through Botley Road down to Park Gate albeit via Whiteley not Burridge now. And let us not forget Stagecoach & their 69 Bishops Waltham to Fareham route. Since Stagecoach flogged off all their Soton routes to SBL years ago I can not see them trying to sneak back into the city. However, Stagecoach are under different owners now. And what is the fuss about BS having the monopoly along coast from Soton to Poole? Stagecaoch had virtual monopoly from East of Portsmouth to West of Brighton & no one muttered anything. Monopolies can bring stability. Let's see, though would like BS to expand a bit from Soton to Fareham. First X4/X5 through Bursledon/Lowford/Locks Heath been poor for years. The area has changed. Whiteley has expanded big time & it is still treated as ust a small offshoot of Fareham!

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  5. Cancellations of First services have been submitted in VOSA.

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  6. Empress Rd depot? Apparently it will still be used by Firstbus for admin staff purposes?

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    1. I think that very unlikely. Suspect all the other businesses that sub let space there will also need new homes too. I heard that the council already have at least one approach from a prospective tenant! Can't think who that may be!

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    2. Why would the council have an approach..they are nothing to do with it?

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    3. It is Highly likely that Bluestar will move to Empress road.

      If that happens, there will be some changes to timetables.
      I also think Totton and/or Eastleigh depots will be closed, if BS moves to Empress Rd.

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    4. The council own the depot!

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    5. I think it highly likely that Bluestar will move in there too, together with Unilink. They could then relinquish one of their Eastleigh compounds, but Empress Rd is not big enough to get rid of either Eastleigh or Totton too. Likely to keep them all for operational reasons.

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    6. I have absolutely no doubt that the depot is leased from the council. Maybe you are reading the leasing charges!

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    7. There are no leasing charges for a freehold site!

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    8. Ok, if you say so, but if that were the case, why would Bluestar be negotiating with the council to rent the site from them?

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    9. Because Bluestar are not negotiating to rent the depot from the council as they don’t own it. Check the land registry

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    10. At an Institute of Transport event yesterday I chatted with the head of the commercial team (chief scheduler) from Go South Coast who said that they currently had an unused area in Barton Park that they are to bring in to use for their initial requierments.

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    11. Having checked the land registry, I note that it does appear to be owned by the council, who purchased it from First!

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    12. Suggest you check again and also the accounts- fairly easy to see. #specsavers ?

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    13. Ah, you mean the very out of date accounts, which do not yet show the sale?

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    14. Of course- they sold the depot to council (who has no money) and would be majorly challenged by opposition councillors for buying a bus depot and not owning any buses. Not forgetting the sale happened over a 2 week period. Have a read about commercial property and timelines - you may surprise yourself.

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    15. You may be surprised at how much property the council owns, having no connection to the business that operates from it.

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    16. But they don’t own the First Bus depot

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  7. https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/first-to-close-southampton-depot.240120/

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    1. Regards earlier comment about First using Empress Rd for admin purposes... The above thread is where I found this info from

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  8. Wish numpties wouldn`t stand and chat to drivers when the bus is in motion-as was the case on Bluestar 4 tonight.Please leave drivers to concentrate on driving.

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  9. https://www.bluestarbus.co.uk/recruitment-event-7-9-december
    From a statement included in the link above, we can confirm that Bluestar will not provide replacement of City Reds 1 and 2 (which is really not surprising).

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    1. While I agree its pretty unlikely they'll make any effort to cover them, if they were to say turn one of the 12s every hour into a 12x running along the CR1 route, they're not gonna need First driver knowledge for that, their own drivers could I'm sure cope

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    2. But why would they be daft enough to bypass paying customers? Unless they are going to employ an idiot from Reds, to run the new operation!

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    3. City Red 1 was never needed in the first place. I believe there will be a slight increase in frequency (more buses per hour) on routes 17 and 18, but that's all.

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    4. I would not read anything into anything. Just because a certain route is, or is not mentioned, it does not mean it will or will not run.

      What does interest me, and I think it is a typo, is that Bluestar are suggesting drivers accepted from CR will be paid £14 from 1 January; which will be while they are still employed by First (unless it is meant as a retainer?)

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    5. That's the rate Bluestar drivers will be paid from January, and ex First drivers will be paid the same. It's just to clarify to those thinking of jumping ship early that they will not only get the joining bonus, but a better hourly rate too. Nothing to do with a retainer. Plenty will want to hang in there for the redundancy cheque, but some will be happy to move earlier for job security.

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    6. Bluestar 9 has always missed a few stops between Totton and Southampton Central, including Redbridge roundabout and all stops between Millbrook and Southampton stations. So I'm not sure City Reds are the only ones "daft enough to bypass paying customers" in this area!

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    7. Cheers Anonymous (10 December 2022 at 23:15) although I would find that a very strange take considering the paragraphs before it.

      Offering a contract starting the day after your contract ends at City Red and then saying "but if you jump ship now...." - I respect, but am dubious at your take on it.

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    8. Anon at 2101, 11/12, you are right that the longer distance 9 does miss some stops to give enough time for an hourly turn round operationally, but when you have a network of services giving a bus every five minutes, it is very different to it being an only service on the route, in First's case.

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    9. When the 1 first started it was every 10 mins, then when Covid happened it was gradually reduced to the half hourly service it sees now. In hindsight it might have been worth having a 1 and a 1X, each operating every 20 mins - the 1 stopping at all stops between Totton and the City Centre, and the 1X marketed as an express service across the flyovers and only stopping at the station (and possibly Waterloo Road stops to maintain a 10 min frequency along here). This would have given exposure to Millbrook and Redbridge customers and possibly made purchasing weekly/monthly tickets more attractive. If you're a regular traveller looking to get a weekly/monthly ticket at the moment, people are more likely to go with Bluestar with their 7/8 buses an hour, compared to just 2 with First. If I've missed a bus I wouldn't want the thought that I'm stuck with the one operator with a half hour wait between buses.

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    10. The 1 could never have made money, even if they had taken every single passenger from Bluestar. The frequency doubled the cost compared to Bluestar, who only scrape a meagre profit from it on a twenty minute frequency. It was a non starter from the outset and a great example of inept management.

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  10. The 1 has never really been marketed as an express route, even though its main selling point is using the flyovers at Millbrook and Redbridge to speed up time. Apart from that it offers nothing to try and steer people away from Bluestar. I still don’t think better marketing would have made much difference as the gains from saving a couple of minutes over Bluestar aren’t worth the loss of revenue from the missed stops. Could’ve saved the money by cutting their losses a couple of years ago, or better still, not even bothered with it in the first place

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    1. There is quite a lot of unpleasantness and nastiness on this blog, looking at some of the posts by blog owner, comments and previous posts. It’s quite different from the vast majority of other blog sites, why is this?

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    2. If you're talking about the Anti-First sentiment, well, they couldn't be more right about it. First destroyed a whole bus network that doesn't cover the whole of Southampton in 23 years of existence.
      I am so looking forward to seeing them go for good.
      My thoughts are with the drivers and their families, because they just did what they've been told.

      Two iconic colours disappeared (or about to) from the South: The Yellow and the Red.

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    3. Can’t see Southampton and Bournemouth being the only areas where operators pull out/ close down.

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    4. Although it is very sad that First closed so many routes, I wonder quite what effect Blue Star had on their decision. Blue Star certainly flooded Shirley High Street with the 17, Townhill with the 16 etc and this must have had a serious impact on First and perhaps this was a reason they cut so many minor (loss making) routes. I did not see Blue Star taking on these routes with the exception of the Cumbrian Way part of former 17/17A to give a vastly inferior service to the former route.
      I agree with a previous comment about the blog operator being particularly anti First. Although many points are true, some are questionable. The unilink contract, originally with Blue Line, went to First Bus and partly due to bad admin by the University, led to First being blamed for problems the University had instigated

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  11. You are to some extent correct that Bluestar has seen the weaknesses and strengths within the First operation and completely out thought them on most. Normally this would have caused the demise of First much sooner, but somehow they limped on, for much longer than most expected. The vitriol against them is entirely justified in my opinion, due to their crazy commercial decisions. When they should have been attacking the most profitable routes, they chose two of the least lucrative one's, I cite the 8 and the 12, which barely scrape a few pounds with a single operator, let alone 2.

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    1. It has not been long ago since Calmore gained a Sunday evening service (2018)...

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  12. No. In 2017 the last bus was at around 18:00

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  13. Bluestar has announced the new routes to take over First

    Service 10 to replace First 9 hourly
    Service 13 to replace First 13 every 30minutes
    Service 14 to replace First 8 every 30 minutes
    Service 15 to replace First 6 every 30 minutes
    Service 19 to replace First 3 ever 20 minutes (but will run via Maybush Corner instead of Warre Avenue)
    Service 20 to replace First 7 every 15 minutes.

    Timetables to be released soon.

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    1. It's very clever going via Maybush Corner as they clearly don't want 2 buses doing the exactly the same route.

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    2. Not quite exactly the same route, but very similar.

      The 17 goes via Aldermoor Road and from Lordshill onto Adanac Park.

      The 19 will go via Lordshill Way a d will end at Lordshill

      But a good idea nonetheless

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    3. The new B*19 routing means that Maybush Corner will have 7 buses per hour in each direction every hour, almost double that of today’s 4bph. I believe the last time the area had such generous provision was back in 2015 when First route 1 to Adanac Park via Palm Road still existed, while First 12 (the predecessor to B*7) ran every 15 minutes.

      Will be interesting to see passenger loadings on this new routing of B*19 and whether this will lead to noticeable abstraction from B*7.

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    4. Maybush Corner at a time had 15 buses an hour during Firsts 2012 big revamp (which was a positive change for First at the time)
      They had First 1/1A every 10 minutes, First 2/2A also every 10 minutes, First 10 hourly and Bluestar 4 every 30 minutes

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  14. On the new map I notice Bluestar 17 are serving a new-build road called Hurst Way linking the Adanac Health Campus, although there is no mention of it being complete as of yet.

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    1. Not that anyone knows the name of the road, but it has been serving it since late August. It cannot go that way after 2200 weekdays nor at any time at weekends, as the barriers do not open when the site is not in use.

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    2. Ahh thanks for the heads up. Neither Google nor Apple Maps were showing the road as complete, so assumed it hadn’t been finished yet.

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    3. I have wondered if it might be an option to extend every other 17 to Totton via Nursling Industrial estate and Gover Road providing an option for Waterside and Totton residents to access the Hospital, Lordshiill and Shirley without having to go via the City. When the dust settles there is an opportunity to review service levels and provide a genuine citywide service restoring services to many areas that First abandoned.

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    4. That could work, although not sure Totton to Lordshill merits a bus every 15 minutes. Half-hourly might be more reasonable. Still a very good connectivity opportunity though.

      Another minor tweak that might be worth looking at is allowing the Adanac Park route to bypass Lower Brownhill, making that journey slightly quicker. This could be done by truncating the 17 at Lower Brownhill (as it did before 2019) and extending the 19 to Adanac Park (and Totton) direct via Brownhill Way.

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