London Country South East

London Country South East was a bus operator in South-East England. It was formed in 1986 from the break-up of London Country Bus Services, and was known as Kentish Bus for most of its existence. Its operations are now part of Arriva Southern Counties.

Creation and early history
In the run-up to deregulation, London Country Bus Services was broken up into four smaller companies in September 1986. London Country South East was the smallest of the four, with just 169 buses and garages at Dartford, Northfleet, Swanley and Dunton Green, with some London Transport contracts operated from the former National Travel garages at Victoria and Catford, with Head Office in an office block in Dartford.

Bill Gunning, the former Traffic Manager of London Country, became the new company's Managing Director. The company was renamed Kentish Bus & Coach in April 1987, and a new maroon and cream livery, designed by Best Impressions and loosely based on the colours of the erstwhile Colchester Corporation Transport, replaced the former London Country green. Head office was removed to Apex House, an office block in Northfleet.

1988-1994: Proudmutual Ownership
As part of the privatisation of National Bus Company, Kentish Bus was sold by the government in March 1988. Proudmutual, a holding company formed by the management buyout of Northumbria Motor Services on that company's privatisation, bought Kentish Bus for £2.4 million.

Bill Gunning, the company's Managing Director, left at privatization; in 1989 the role passed to Brian Hirst, who had previously worked for Alder Valley. The company then expanded its London operations significantly with a series of contract wins and acquisitions. The largest win was of London routes 22A and 55, won from London Forest in January 1990; 43 new dual-door Leyland Olympians with Northern Counties were bought to operate the routes. Outside of London, the competing operations of Northfleet-based Mini Metro were taken over at the beginning of 1990. In February 1992 the company paid £300,000 for the seven contracted routes and 50 vehicles of Boro'line, the London arm of Boro'line Maidstone, the trading name of Maidstone Borough Transport. These were initially operated from the former Boro'line garage at Crayford; the majority later moved to Dartford, although some also operated from the former London Forest garage at Ash Grove, which was also used for routes 22A and 55.

In early 1993 Kentish Bus gained work in the south-east London and ordered 65 new buses to cover the workings; this took the fleet size to 352, more than double its size in 1986. One of the routes gained was route 19, for which the company leased refurbished AEC Routemasters from London Regional Transport; they were the first operator other than a former London Buses subsidiary to win a contract for a Routemaster-operated route, and used their own maroon and cream livery in place of London red. By August 1993 they had become the largest independent operator of London contracts. Further expansion came in November 1993, when two London contracts and six minor commercial routes, along with 23 buses, were taken over from Transcity Buses.

1994-1997: British Bus and Cowie
In July 1994, the fast-expanding British Bus group bought Proudmutual. British Bus already owned neighbouring operator London & Country (successor to London Country South West), and in January 1995 London & Country's contracted operations at Croydon, Walworth and Dunton Green depots were split into a new company, Londonlinks, which was run from Kentish Bus' Northfleet base. When Maidstone & District were also acquired by British Bus in April 1995, the three companies were put under the control of a single holding company, Invictaway, which was based at M&D's head office in Maidstone. A new livery of green and yellow was also introduced to Kentish Bus. On August 1, 1996, the company had another new owner: Cowie Group bought out British Bus in a deal which brought three of the four segments of London Country back into common ownership.

Rebranding and subsequent history
In 1997 Cowie was rebranded as Arriva. The Invictaway company became Arriva Southern Counties, which was subdivided into five smaller subsidiaries. The Dartford and Northfleet garages of Kentish Bus formed the new Arriva Kent Thameside operation, while Tunbridge Wells joined most of Maidstone & District's operation as Arriva Kent & Sussex.

The London operation was closed in either Battersea base or Leyton base, and were spread into respective depots, be it as 19 or 22A/22B. The 22A/22B were renumbered 242.