The Wellglade Group[ Companies House extract company no 1980546 Wellglade Limited] (WG), is a transport group operating bus and tram services in the English Midlands.
History
Wellglade was formed in 1986 when Brian King and Ian Morgan purchased Trent Buses from the National Bus Company in a management buyout. In 1989 the business of
Barton Transport was purchased.
[ History Trentbarton][ Wellglade Tramlink Nottingham]
In 1998 Wellglade purchased the Kinchbus business in Loughborough. In January 2010 TM Travel of Sheffield was purchased. In January 2012 Wellglade took over the bus operations of Felix Bus Services.
In December 2011 Tramlink Nottingham took over the running of the Nottingham Express Transit tram network, as a 12.5% shareholder in the operating consortium. In April 2012 Centrebus Bowers Coaches operation and services operated from the Dove Holes depot of Wellglade's Trentbarton were combined to form High Peak Buses.
During September 2022, it was announced that current managing director Jeff Counsell will retire in February 2023 and will be succeeded by Tom Morgan who is the current commercial director for Wellglade Group.
Subsidiaries and Interests
Current
Trentbarton
Trentbarton operates services from
Bakewell in the north to
Coalville in the south as well as Ashbourne, Burton upon Trent, Chesterfield,
Derby,
Ilkeston,
Mansfield, and
Nottingham. It was formed when the Trent Buses and
Barton Transport operations were merged.
[
]
Kinchbus
Kinchbus is a bus operator based in Loughborough. It was originally an independent company established by Gilbert and Janet Kinch.
Kinchbus operate some local services around Loughborough along with their Kinchbus2 route between Barrow-upon-Soar and Loughborough, Skylink from Leicester to Derby via Loughborough and East Midlands Airport.
Kinchbus use the slogan 'Loughborough's Finest' which is advertised across their fleet of buses. Following the collapse of Nottingham based Premiere Travel on 24 January 2013, Kinchbus reinstated their service 9 between Loughborough and Nottingham which was the first route to have the new refreshed version of the current livery and logo which have been in place since 2007.
Notts and Derby
Notts + Derby operates a small number of local bus services, school buses and contract and private hire work in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. They operate a fleet of vehicles, most of which previously operated with Trentbarton and Nottingham City Transport. They now use a substantial amount of Ex Lothian buses in more recent years.
TM Travel
TM Travel is a bus operator based in Halfway, Sheffield, operating bus services in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire. It was founded in 1995 as a family-owned operation with one bus. School bus services and National Express services were later introduced.
Nottingham Express Transit
In March 2011 the Tramlink Nottingham consortium which Wellglade holds a 12.5% shareholding in, was awarded the Nottingham Express Transit 2 contract by Nottingham City Council.[ NET Phase Two Preferred Bidder Named Tramlink Nottingham][ Anticipated acquisition by Tramlink Nottingham Consortium of NET phase 2 concession Office of Fair Trading 15 September 2011] In December 2011 Tramlink Nottingham took over the running of the tram network.
High Peak Buses
In April 2012, Centrebus and Trentbarton entered a 50/50 joint venture. This saw Centrebus owned Bowers Coaches and Trentbarton's Buxton area services combined to form High Peak Buses based at the latter's Dove Holes depot.[ Wellglade/Centrebus join up in Buxton busandcoach.com 24 May 2011][ New bus operator hits the road Trentbarton]
Kleanline
Wellglade also owns cleaning service provider Kleanline.[ Home Kleanline]
Littles Travel
During November 2024, Wellglade Group acquired the business of Littles Travel based in Ilkeston, which will continue to operate as a separate entity to other Wellglade Group companies.
Former and Inactive Subsidiaries and Interests
First Leicester
Through the Trentbarton operations, Wellglade Group acquired a 6% shareholding of First Leicester in 1993, FirstGroup are the majority shareholder in the operations.[ Government Approves 19th Bus Sale of Leicester Citybus Ltd Local Government Chronicle 15 November 1993][ FirstGroup Annual Report March 2013 FirstGroup] During 2024, First Group purchased the Wellglade Group shareholding in Leicester CityBus ending the long standing shareholding.
Midland General
The Midland General Omnibus Company was incorporated in 1920 as a company in the Balfour Beatty group with a depot at Langley Mill. In 1972 the company's operations were merged with those of Trent and the Midland General fleetname ceased to be used.
The name was resurrected when Bargain Bus routes BB2 to Cotgrave and BB4 to Long Eaton were started in Nottingham in competition with Premiere Travel's services. These were withdrawn after Premiere Travel decided to withdraw their services.
The Black Cat and Ilkeston Flyer services acquired from Felix in January 2012 were to be operated by Midland General.
Felix Bus Services
In January 2012 Wellglade purchased some assets from Felix Bus Services.[ Wellglade to buy Felix bus services busandcoach.com 30 November 2011] Felix already shared two routes with Trentbarton, these being Black Cat and Ilkeston Flyer. Despite the appearance of the Midland General name in timetables,
External links
