On Wednesday 30 September, Chairman of the County Council Norman Hume officially declared First Essex new bus depot open in Colchester. As part of a £3.5m investment, First Essex has merged its present depots at Queen Street and Haven Road into a new purpose built facility at Quayside.
The investment has been very well received by our staff. With a new office facility to work from, along with brand new workshops built to undertake all engineering functions, the working environment is greatly improved and much more efficient. New systems have been introduced to manage bus parts and other materials under one roof whereby previously we had items spread over three sites.
We have also introduced improved bus wash facilities and cleaning processes to improve the cleanliness of our buses. As part of the investment, we recently refurbished our travel shop and driver facilities at our town centre site and introduced a brand new learning centre for staff.
Alex Jones Managing Director for First Essex in Colchester said;” We’re committed to delivering the best services for our customers, and providing the best operating environment for our staff. Our new centre of operations will help us improve upon our strong punctuality and reliability performance and provide us with an excellent platform to develop our business further”
“This investment, along with a further £2m on 17 brand new streetlite buses scheduled for December, provides confidence and reassurance to our customers and stakeholders that we are committed to providing a comprehensive bus network for local communities in Colchester”.
Councillor Norman Hume, Chairman of Essex County Council, said: “First Essex is one of our important commercial bus partners and I am delighted to be here to open this brand new bus depot. Essex County Council is investing heavily in transportation in Colchester - this new depot will contribute to our aim of improving the roads in Colchester and is another boost to the transport infrastructure in the borough.”
ENDS
First Essex
Our Essex business operates buses in the areas of Chelmsford, Basildon, Braintree, Brentwood, Clacton, Colchester, Southend, Rayleigh and Canvey Island. We operate a fleet of 326 buses across the area, employing 995 staff. For more information see our website at: www.firstgroup.com/essex you can also follow us on twitter @FirstEssex
UK Bus
FirstGroup is one of Britain’s largest bus operators with around a fifth of bus services outside London. A fleet of some 6,300 buses carries approximately 1.7 million passengers a day in a huge number of communities including 40 of the UK's largest towns and cities. We operate some US-style yellow school buses and have a fleet of coaches available for charter. We also operate the Aircoach network in Ireland.
FirstGroup
FirstGroup plc is the leading transport operator in the UK and North America and our services help to create strong, vibrant and sustainable local economies. During the last year around 2.4 billion people relied on us to get to work, to education, to visit family and friends and much more and, each day, every one of our 110,000 employees works hard to deliver vitally important services for our passengers.
Our vision is to provide solutions for an increasingly congested world… keeping people moving and communities prospering.