Clearly its been a fast moving couple of days and the dust is a long way off settling yet with quite a lot still up in the air.
We'd been working on contingencies for this day for some time and our proposals had been discussed with the appropriate authorities but you don't know it will happen, nor the manner it happens, until it actually happens. We're in a good position for drivers and vehicles with a surplus of both but there is a limit as to what any operator will be able to sensibly commit to and we have committed to run what we think we can sensibly deliver at this stage with the option to do more if required by calling in additional resources elsewhere.
We have registered a version of the 170 with short notice support from Derbyshire CC to start from tomorrow. All journeys provided commercially, including the Sunday daytime timetable.
The 63 is registered to start from Thursday but given this evenings events we will try to operate the full service tomorrow without fares for Wednesday, fares charged from Thursday.
A number of Hulleys drivers are joining our Chesterfield team and the door is open for more to apply. We have around a dozen vacancies over the coming months with various other planned uplifts, including the return of Peak Sightseer for its third season. We have a very healthy pipeline of new drivers and have generally never struggled to recruit at Chesterfield but we'll never turn away good quality applications from pcv drivers, particularly with such a short notice uplift in work. In the meantime drivers from our other depots will be enjoying the delightful change of scenery for a short period.
We had a discussion with the owner of a number of the ex-Hulleys vehicles but we can resource the modest uplift in vehicles from our own reserve pool.
It is incredibly sad to see the end of a very well respected and long serving independent bus company and I wish all those involved well for the future, many of whom have either worked for us or alongside us over the past few decades.
