Battle brews at Exeter city
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• A no-holds-barred bus battle is brewing between City of Oxford Motor Services and Harry Blumdred's Devon General company. City of Oxford is moving in on city centre routes in Devon General's Exeter stronghold — and Blundred is preparing to hit back with an Oxford-Heathrow service in direct competition with Oxford's X70 service. He has Leyland Tigers on call to launch his counter-strike.
City of Oxford has succeeded in getting an Exeter city centre vehicle length restriction (against the wish of council officers) and takes delivery of 15 Optare Metroriders in April for the new service. It has applied for the necessary licence.
Blundred is deadly serious about the City of Oxford threat. "Rather than sit back and wait to be picked oft" he says, "we're taking the right action now to make us strong in advance." In a "rejigging" exercise, Blundred has reduced services on some Exeter routes, taking about 10 vehicles out of the current network "in order to concentrate on principal routes". The company has also increased its fares by 71/2%, two weeks ahead of schedule. Blundred also intends to undercut Oxford's airport service fares which he alleges
are at "profiteering" levels, David Beaman, operations director of the Oxford contender, is confident that his company will build up business "steadily and progressively" in Exeter. "A different type of service is needed in Exeter," he says. "We've had complaints of the existing service's unreliability, fare levels and standard of vehicle."
Blundred, who admits there have been complaints, also faces an attack from the Rainbow bus company, which moved into Exeter last week.