Chase Coaches

History

Chase Coaches was established when Graham Dodd purchased the business of Churchbridge Luxury Coaches. Following deregulation in 1986, bus operations commenced. The livery of white, orange and brown was adopted after the purchase of some former Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive Leyland National buses. The original fleet livery was off-white with prussian blue relief.

The first service buses were East Lancs bodied Leyland Leopards. These were used on works services from around 1983 and moving onto bus services in 1986. Further Leyland Leopards once operated by Midland Red North were added to the fleet in 1987, but Leyland Nationals eventually became the standard bus type. At one stage three Eastern Coach Works bodied Bristol RE buses were operated. In the early days of bus service operation around 1987 coaches would sometimes be used on bus services, for example AEC Reliances and Bristol LHSs. It operated services in Walsall, Cannock and Brownhills.

On 25 February 2007, the business was purchased by Arriva Midlands with 27 buses and 40 employees.

At the time of the sale, the majority of the fleet were Leyland Nationals, but also included one Ikarus Citibus bodied DAF SB220 and three UVG Urbanstar bodied Dennis Dart SLFs. All the buses apart from the Ikarus and three Darts were sold at auction. The DAF and one of the Darts moved to Shrewsbury depot, with Cannock garage using the other two Darts.

Arriva Midlands operated a Leyland National day on 28 April 2007 to commemorate the end of Leyland National operations which took in a majority of the routes operated. The last day services included an additional two Leyland Nationals duplicating the scheduled services. However, six Nationals were retained for a further month due to a lack of vehicles.