Avon Buses
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 | |
 Plaxton Pointer 2 bodied Dennis Dart SLF at Mill Park in September 2016 | |
| Parent | Larry Smith |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 1981 |
| Defunct | 5 October 2018 |
| Headquarters | Prenton |
| Service area | Merseyside Cheshire |
| Service type | Bus services |
| Hubs | West Kirby Birkenhead Arrowe Park Hospital Heswall Chester Crosby Clatterbridge Hospital |
| Fleet | 41 (February 2017) |
Avon Buses[1] was a bus operator based in Prenton providing services in Merseyside and Cheshire, England.
Avon Minis, as the company was originally known, was founded in August 1981 by Larry Smith. By 1995 it had six buses and ran mostly school contracts plus one local route. The newest buses were two Leyland Titans.[2]
The company expanded with services starting in Crosby, Fazakerley and a 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 be confused 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 After the Helms Coaches service was withdrawn, Avon Buses decided not to raise the frequency of routes 22 and 24 but add an additional Sunday 23 service from Heswall to Chester Bus Exchange, which was withdrawn in April 2011.[citation needed]
In October 2013 Avon took on eight routes from Impera Bus & Coach[3] after Impera ceased to trade.[4][5]
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's daytime 135 and 235 service between Bootle and Aintree.
On 10 August 2014 Avon took over Merseytravel services 144/145 from Peoplesbus running between Litherland and Bootle. Two morning and two afternoon services started and finished at Arrowe Park Hospital, numbered 143.
In September 2014 the 22 was withdrawn and replaced by Stagecoach X22 running between Heswall bus station and Chester, avoiding Williston.
From 8 December 2014, some of the longer Avon routes were split up, interworked with one 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, with the section of route between Heswall and West Kirby becoming 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.
On 1 September 2015 a new timetable was introduced on many routes and the 22 returned to its pre-September 2012 route.
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 significantly rerouted to serve Newton, Greasby, Arrowe Park Hospital and Pensby. The 83 became a three buses a day service in each direction between Prenton and Liverpool.
