Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Portsmouth's "Hover" is the courtesy bus to and from Southsea Hoverport, operated under contract from Hovertravel. This will be operated by First from the 1st. May.
Not franchising - that will come later - but on retendering to (I believe) First.
Independents - and Adventure Travel - have not faired particularly well.
In that list, Eastbourne and Uckfield are the "true" outstations. All the other locations have a specific allocation of vehicles.
Ringmer is a location coming with the acquisition of Eastbourne Sightseeing, although (I think) its been used in the past by Go-Ahead London's Commercial Services as...
Would agree about the 58 going to South West Coaches, they also have operating bases at both ends of the route.
Any thoughts on who would take over Dorset route CR4?
May be worth mentioning that this was initially an East Lancs design. There is commentary elsewhere which describes how it became an Optare-badged product.