Did Thatcher discriminate against municipalities?

[6Gman]

On another thread somebody has claimed that as PM Thatcher introduced a rule that municipalities were not allowed to operate buses over 10years old, but that this rule did not apply to privately-owned companies.

This seems bizarre!

Can anyone confirm whether this was or wasn't the case?

 

[ChrisPJ]

Doubt it! Didn't Hartlepool have a whole heap of very venerable Bristol REs when it finally sold out?

 

[iantherev]

I don't recall any such rule being discussed, let alone implemented.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I don't recall any such rule being discussed, let alone implemented.

To quote another example with Darlington who had...

<10 years old - 8 Leopards, 18 single deck Dominators vs.
>10 years old - c.25 single deck Fleetlines, 8 Seddon Pennines

I seem to recall plenty of municipalities with ageing fleet still knocking around at de-reg and indeed, the new bus grant going in 1980 was pivotal.

I think the poster must've have been confused.

 

[A0]

As with posters, I don't believe this was ever a law.

I lived in Ipswich for a year in around 1993 and the bulk of Ipswich Borough's fleet comprised of pre-1980 Atlanteans.

 

[Robertj21a]

.
Never heard of it.

 

[CatfordCat]

Another vote for 'never heard of it'

Blackpool may have had the oldest buses in regular service come deregulation - their 1967-68 PD3s were still on the road, and older Routemasters joined the fleet around deregulation time.

(Although there may have been older rear engined buses still on the road but less obvious!)

I think at least some of Burnley, Southampton and Southend bought Routemasters while still council owned following deregulation, and Maidstone's semi preserved PD2 ran in regular service for a while in the late 80s.

Post 1985 Act, the only sort of thing I can think of where an age limit came in was that some tendering authorities (counties / PTEs and so on) did put age limits in their contract specifications as a fairly blunt way of trying to improve quality on tendered services.

But it would have been (and fairly sure it still would be) illegal for a tendering authority to impose different conditions for different operators / different types of operators.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Another vote for 'never heard of it'

Blackpool may have had the oldest buses in regular service come deregulation - their 1967-68 PD3s were still on the road, and older Routemasters joined the fleet around deregulation time.

(Although there may have been older rear engined buses still on the road but less obvious!)

I think at least some of Burnley, Southampton and Southend bought Routemasters while still council owned following deregulation, and Maidstone's semi preserved PD2 ran in regular service for a while in the late 80s.

Post 1985 Act, the only sort of thing I can think of where an age limit came in was that some tendering authorities (counties / PTEs and so on) did put age limits in their contract specifications as a fairly blunt way of trying to improve quality on tendered services.

But it would have been (and fairly sure it still would be) illegal for a tendering authority to impose different conditions for different operators / different types of operators.

Forgot about Burnley having them!

Perhaps the poster was confused as the PTEs had relatively young fleets anyway and then when de-reg hit, the oldest vehicles tended to be casualties of fleet reductions (though some very youthful 3/4 yr old vehicles left GM and WY) plus a reduction in conventional fleet in favour of minis.

GM were busy disposing deckers and Nationals that also only dated from 1977 whilst TWPTE had a modern fleet anyway as so many had gone with Metro related service cuts. SYPTE were busy losing their Fleetlines of which many dated 1975-7 as well.

However, the proper municipal fleets tended to have older stuff with places like Hull having some venerable Atlanteans

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

On another thread somebody has claimed that as PM Thatcher introduced a rule that municipalities were not allowed to operate buses over 10years old, but that this rule did not apply to privately-owned companies. This seems bizarre! Can anyone confirm whether this was or wasn't the case?

The lesson to be learnt, noting what replies you have received in answer to your thread question, is to be careful with regards to placing your trust in certain posting responses on matters that can seem politically inspired in their motivation. Why not now challenge the person on that other thread to which you allude to come up with hard and fast proof of what they said.