Steven Knight visits West Norfolk where Lynx prowls the road
Coming from the Midlands I believe that buses should be red. That comes from growing up in the heart of Midland Red country. As a primary colour, and with the right shade, red livery can be extremely impactful. After all, the ethos of any business should be awareness and, for a bus company, red does that for me.
Perhaps that is why the 37-bus fleet of Lynx, based in the West Norfolk town of King’s Lynn, stands out from the crowd.
While the majority of the fleet has been acquired pre-owned, Lynx has two more high-spec Enviro 400MMCs due from ADL, taking the total buses bought new to seven.
You could be forgiven in thinking that Lynx is a long-established business. If so, it will come as a surprise as bus services only started in 2015. Using the Lynx fleet name (the legal entity is Coastal Red Limited) the company had been incorporated in Autumn 2013 by Steve Challis and Andy Warnes. They were later joined by Julian Patterson. The trio were no strangers to Norfolk bus operations having identified a gap in the market through poor service provision from First in 1999 and set up Konectbus, which was ultimately sold to Go Ahead.
The King’s Lynn area had been well served by the award-winning Norfolk Green, which had been established by Ben Colson, but was subsequently sold to Stagecoach. In the spring of 2014 the directors at Lynx, acutely aware that there was little competition on bus services in West Norfolk, took the decision to explore entering the market.
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