First Leeds

First Leeds

A First Leeds ftr bus (left) and a Wright Eclipse Gemini (right) on Vicar Lane in August 2010
Parent	FirstGroup
Founded	1995, formerly Yorkshire Rider
Headquarters	South Accommodation Road, Leeds
Service area	Leeds, Bradford, Ilkley, Skipton
Service type	Bus services
Website	www.firstgroup.com

First Leeds is one of the bus companies serving the area of West Yorkshire, England. It forms part of FirstGroup, a company operating transport services in the British Isles and in North America. The company operates within the area covered by Metro, a public body responsible for helping to co-ordinate public transport services in the West Yorkshire area.

Following bus deregulation in 1986, the MetroBus (the West Yorkshire PTE) fleet was renamed Yorkshire Rider Ltd. In October 1988 Yorkshire Rider was bought by its management for £23 million.

Yorkshire Rider was then bought by Badgerline, a Bristol-based bus company, in 1994. Following the merger of Badgerline with GRT Ltd to form First Bus in 1995, its services were rebranded:

These names were later replaced with First Leeds, First Calderline, First Huddersfield and First Bradford.

Until recently, First Quickstep, was also part of the First group. It was based at the same Kirkstall Road depot as First Leeds but was a separate organization. It is now a part of First Leeds and it runs the FreeCityBus service.

In July 2005 the company took over Morley-based Black Prince Buses, a large independent company. The Morley depot was closed down and the fleet was sold, with the exception of a couple of single-deckers and the large fleet of Scania N113 double-deckers.

On 18 May 2008 the Kirkstall Road depot was closed after 111 years of public transport use and operations moved to a new complex in Hunslet. The site was planned to be redeveloped in 2008 as part of Leeds City Council's Kirkstall Road Renaissance Area project.

The company has a large fleet which includes Wright Eclipse Gemini, Solar and articulated buses (Volvo B10LA), and Dennis Darts with Alexander Dash (new in 1995) and Plaxton Pointer (1996) bodies.