Stagecoach East

Stagecoach East is a bus operator providing local and regional services across the East of England, operating in the counties of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. The company is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group and is headquartered and registered in Cambridge.

Under the control of the National Bus Company, Cambus Ltd. was set up when the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company was split in preparation for privatisation. The company was incorporated on 8 June 1984; it took over Eastern Counties' bus and National Express coach operations from garages in Cambridgeshire and parts of Suffolk (Newmarket and Haverhill) on 9 September 1984. On 5 December 1986, Cambus was sold to its management team in a management buyout.

In December 1988, Cambus Holdings acquired most of the bus and coach operations of Cambridge-based Premier Travel Services, with the exception being the Cambridge–London Airports coach services, which remained with the AJS Group as part of the new Cambridge Coach Services operation. A reorganisation of the acquired operator followed in May 1990, with all coach operations (including National Express contracts) being transferred to Premier Travel, and Premier Travel's bus routes being transferred to Cambus. In September 1989, Cambus's Peterborough operations were split off to form The Viscount Bus and Coach Company Ltd.

In February 1992, Cambus Holdings bought Millers Coaches of Foxton from its owner, Bernard Miller, on his retirement. Millers Coaches had been competing with Cambus on a number of bus routes, using the Millerbus name, and this operation became a new Millerbus Ltd. subsidiary, under the direct control of the Cambus management; the operation lasted for about three years before being absorbed into its parent. Meanwhile, Millers Coaches itself was placed under the control of Premier Travel, although the name was retained (and both companies adopted liveries using different colours applied in the same style). By the autumn of 1995, however, the operations of Premier Travel and Millers Coaches had been absorbed into the main Cambus company, although the Premier Travel name survived in use with Cambus a few years longer.

On 25 November 1992, Cambus Holdings expanded in Buckinghamshire, with the purchase of Generalouter Ltd., the holding company of Milton Keynes City Bus and Buckinghamshire Road Car - offshoots of former National Bus Company subsidiary United Counties.

Cambus Holdings was sold to Stagecoach Holdings for £12.6 million on 6 December 1995, with Stagecoach agreeing to purchase 3,168,560 employee shares in Cambus for £3.50 each. The company was rebranded as Stagecoach Cambus before ultimately becoming the Stagecoach East division. However, following a report by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, Stagecoach was required to divest itself of its Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire operations, as well as United Counties' Huntingdon garage. In late 1997, new company MK Metro took over the Milton Keynes operations while Premier Buses took over the Huntingdon operation, both independent from Stagecoach.

On 30 January 1998, the Huntingdon operation was sold to Sovereign Bus & Coach, owned by Blazefield Holdings who decided to rebrand it to Huntingdon & District. In November 2003 the operations were sold again from Blazefield to Cavalier Contracts of Long Sutton, Lincolnshire.^{[citation needed]} The operations were acquired by Stagecoach on Monday 31 March 2008 when Cavalier Travel sold their interests in bus services of over 9 seats. At the date of sale operations were branded under the names Cavalier Travel and Huntingdon & District. In August 2010, the Stagecoach in Northants operation was transferred from Stagecoach East to Stagecoach Midlands, with Stagecoach East retaining four depots at Bedford, Cambridge, Fenstanton and Peterborough following this reorganisation.

Stagecoach East expanded into Norfolk and southern Lincolnshire in December 2013 with the acquisition of Norfolk Green, based in King's Lynn with a fleet of 70 buses, following the retirement of its owner due to ill health. The Norfolk Green brand was retained by Stagecoach for up to two years before Stagecoach began rebranding buses into standard fleet livery from 2015 onwards. In April 2018, however, Stagecoach East closed its King's Lynn depot and withdrew from operations in Norfolk and south Lincolnshire after the operation was deemed not economically viable; Stagecoach East would return to operations exclusively in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire with the transfer of its Long Sutton outstation to Stagecoach East Midlands in October 2019.^{[citation needed]}