Parent Larry Smith Headquarters Prenton Service type Bus services | Founded August 1981 Service area Merseyside
Cheshire | |
 | ||
Hubs West Kirby
Birkenhead
Arrowe Park Hospital
Heswall
Chester
Crosby
Clatterbridge Hospital | ||
Avon Buses is a bus operator based in Prenton providing services in Merseyside and Cheshire.
Contents
History
Avon Minis, as the company was originally known, was founded in August 1981 by present proprietor Larry Smith. By 1995 it had six buses and ran mostly school contracts plus one local route. The newest buses were two Leyland Titans.
Since then the company has expanded with services starting in Crosby, Fazakerley and their former outstation in Bootle. The business was renamed Avon Buses in 2004/05.
Avon Buses took over former Arriva North West routes 421 and 422, renumbering them to 22 and 22A. Avon then decided to renumber service 22A to 24 so it would not confuse its passengers with Helms Coaches service 23. They also took over five other groups of routes at the same time. After the Helms Coaches service was withdrawn, Avon Buses decided not to up the frequency of routes 22 and 24 but add an additional Sunday 23 service from Heswall to Chester Bus Exchange, which was eventually withdrawn in April 2011.
In October 2013 Avon took on eight routes from Impera Bus & Coach after Impera ceased to trade.
29 June 2014 saw the end of two commercial Avon routes, (Route 40/40A Saughall Massie - Mill Park) & (Route 80 Woodside - Arrowe Park Hospital) It also saw the end of Merseytravel routes 197 & 213
On 6 July 2014 Avon took over Cumfybus' daytime 135,235 service between Bootle and Aintree.
On 10 August 2014 Avon took over Merseytravel services 144/145 from Peoplesbus running between Litherland and Bootle. 2 morning and 2 afternoon services start and finish at Arrowe Park Hospital, in Wirral, which are numbered 143
In September 2014 The 22 was withdrawn and replaced by Stagecoach X22 running between Heswall bus station and Chester Bus Exchange but due it routing the service was very bad as it avoided Williston.
From 8 December 2014, some of the longer Avon routes were split up, which interwork with each other. Routes 86/87 were cut back to Heswall, whilst the section of route between Heswall and West Kirby was renumbered 88. Routes 77/77A were also cut back to Heswall, whilst the section of route between Heswall and West Kirby became the 82/82A. This had also happened before in August 2012 when routes 12 and 12A were split to become 12 and 93: the route remained unchanged with through journeys still possible, but they were technically now different services.
On 1st September 2015 A new timetable came out on many routes and the 22 returned go via it former which ran until September 2012.
On 5 September 2016 many of Avon's services were re-routed, cut or new destinations added. The 22 was extended from West Kirby to Moreton Cross and most of it rerouted to serve... Newton, Greasby, Arrowe Park Hospital and Pensby. The 83 became a 3 buses a day service in each direction between Prenton and Liverpool.
Fleet
As of February 2017 the fleet consisted of 41 buses.
The bulk of the fleet consists of Dennis Dart SLF and Alexander Dennis Enviro 200 Darts chassis with East Lancs Spryte, Caetano Nimbus, MCV Evolution and Plaxton Pointer 2 bodywork.
The initial Avon Buses livery was a dark blue with cream. In 1993 the livery became predominantly cream with blue stripes lined in gold. In 1998 the livery evolved again into cream with a blue skirt and black around the windows. A new livery was introduced during 2016 with the arrival of five short Enviro200 buses. This livery is white with a blue skirt with the blue raising to the roof towards the rear, broken with a cream sash.
There have been very few exceptions to the Avon livery although, during the 1990s, some coaches operated in a red livery branded 'Avon Executive' and a Leyland National Greenway carried a Merseytravel livery of yellow, white and black as a dedicated bus to a contract between Heswall and West Kirby.