Redundancies possible after Kidderminster bus depot sale

12:12pm Thursday 24th January 2013 in Local Photograph of the Author By William Tomaney

Sold: The Worcester Road traffic island bus depot now belongs to Rotala. Sold: The Worcester Road traffic island bus depot now belongs to Rotala.

REDUNDANCIES have not been ruled out at Kidderminster’s bus depot which has just changed hands.

Rotala, which owns Red Diamond busses along with others, bought the Worcester Road traffic island site, along with a depot in Redditch from First Group for £1.5 million.

According to Stephen Haselden, group business development manager for Rotala, the Kidderminster site currently runs at a loss which “cannot be sustained in the long term”.

“This means we are going to introduce a number of efficiency measures,” he added. “It is also likely that Kidderminster will need some sort of restructure so we need to do a review.

“In Kidderminster we are not yet sure which jobs will be duplicated after that so there is a potential for some redundancies but that would be a last resort and we would look to redeploy workers first.”

Rotala confirmed it would continue to run the services that First currently operates from the depot which comprises a site of about two acres and can accommodate up to 60 vehicles.

Both sites employ about 120 staff between them.

“We are local to Kidderminster and it is a nice place,” added Mr Haselden. “We already run at Redditch and the link with Redditch is obvious and this acquisition expands our group in the West Midlands.

“Kidderminster is the kind of area we want to be in because we like towns where we can become part of the community. This presents us with an opportunity to provide a top class service for Kidderminster.

The sale was announced this morning and no further plans or timetables have been released yet by the Rotala.

Comments(5)

stour67 says...
5:59pm Thu 24 Jan 13

So if you have a compliant about a bus service or driver who do you complain to ?.

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Driving Instructor says...
10:04am Sat 26 Jan 13

The fault in all this is very poor management, First could have had an excellant position here,but for the idiots at the top, Union officials who were and still are useless,differant payrates across all the depots, I recall one partimer being told in the doorway to the depot, ''we dont need partimers any more'' in this depot, that was by a so called manager C.A. the company STILL has p/t drivers !!,
Ever since the old garage and bus station in Corp St was sold to Tesco, moral hit rock bottom,that was a First Group decission now Sir Moir Lockhead has gone, thank god,and as for THAT woman in charge of First Bus Nichola, she was a joke,even the Chair of the Transport Select Committee told her to grow up, Toooooo many Degree's now and not enough experience and common sence.
Oh and by the way Rotela cant buy the roundabout its owned by Worcestershire County Council, and leased to WFDC as a carpark, thats freely available at Land Registry.

Come back Cooke'y ,
Mr Jones you were a pain but well liked, God Rest all who have past away they will be turning in there graves..
I realy hope Rotela fall flat on there face, Whittle's now you will have competition.

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Jane Gordon says...
10:56am Sat 26 Jan 13

I'm not surprised the depot was running at a loss when you had 2 different bus companies following each other on the same route at the same time. Only one can pick passengers and the other following was empty. Bad route planning

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Driving Instructor says...
11:13am Sat 26 Jan 13

No Jane , its Whittle's being greedy,they thought they could compete with First, now its First that has lost out, plus you can all blame it on the CAR and the councillors, Wyre Forest has always been anti bus, only got to look at the so called bus station, Mr Mills wanted a new bus station on the Sling Mill site 'old sorting office but 3 certain councillors poo'pooed it so he said SOD the lot

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Shibdrift says...
12:38pm Thu 31 Jan 13

Please don't complain about bus drivers, they might involve you in their local sport of -
'Who can flatten the most pedestrians trying to cross the road between Tescos and the bus station'!!!!!

But.......at least they wave to you as they hurtle past with the red mist in their eyes!!

Thanks boys.

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