First Essex
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| Parent | FirstGroup |
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| Service area | Essex |
| Service type | Bus services |
| Routes | 130 (April 2016) |
| Depots | 6 |
| Fleet | 381 (July 2014) |
| Website | First Essex website |
First Essex is a bus company operating services in the county of Essex. It is a subsidiary of FirstGroup.
First Essex arose from an amalgamation of Eastern National and Thamesway Buses. First Essex was originally part of the Eastern National Omnibus Company, founded in 1929, nationalised in 1949 and privatised in a management buyout 1986. In 1990 Eastern National was sold to Badgerline (who became part of FirstGroup in 1995) and split, the depots in North Essex continuing to operate as Eastern National, those in South Essex being transferred to a new division, Thamesway. Both were later amalgamated again and rebranded First Essex.
As at July 2014, the fleet consisted of 381 buses. During 2015 buses were added to Colchester's fleet.
First Essex operates five bus depots in the city of Chelmsford and towns of Basildon, Colchester and Hadleigh, and Clacton. The outstation at Great Dunmow has closed, with services transferring to Chelmsford depot. The Harwich Depot was closed in late 2013, all of its services are now run by the Clacton and Colchester depots. The Braintree depot was closed in late 2015. all of its services are now either run by Stephensons Of Essex (21, 131, 132 (converted to 38/38A respectively), Panther Travel (Route 30) Chelmsford (21, 70, 352) and Colchester (70, 352) depots respectively.
Basildon garage operates routes 5, 8/A, 9/A, 10, X10, 15/A/B, 21, 22 (Sundays Only), 25/A, 94/A/B, 100, 200, 201, 251 and school services 502, 511, 512, 561, 562 and the 825.
Basildon depot is on Cherrydown East. It was opened by Eastern National in 1961 to replace premises at Bull Road, Vange.
After Brentwood depot closed in 1995, Basildon ran the Brentwood town services until 1998 when Harold Wood depot took over. When First London took over Harold Wood in 2004, Basildon again took on the Brentwood town services until 2012 when Chelmsford took over the Brentwood services with the 351 and 73(Basildon taking the 551 turning it into the 9).
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