PROVIDING TRANSPORT SINCE 1983

Hunters Coaches Leeds - Our Story

Peter Hunter was born in Leeds and has been a close friend since we both started school, we were in the same class throughout our time at school, we left school at 15 and went our separate ways in our first employment, at eighteen I joined the West Yorkshire Road Car Co Ltd as a conductor, to my surprise Peter joined West Yorkshire a little while after me, Peter married and had three children, I was godfather to two of his children, when we reached the age of 21 (there is 2 months between us), we both went through the West Yorkshire driving school at Harrogate together and both passed the test gained our all types PSV licence.

As time went on I was interested in going south to London after a year driving for West Yorkshire, I decided to go to London Transport in 1973, Peter remained with West Yorkshire until late in 1974 and had decided to start up in business and started Baron Coaches with a 1966 Leyland Firefly coach.

The Firefly coach turned out to be not very good and was replaced with a Ford Plaxton Panorama 53 seater. After a while Peter decided to go in with Springfield Coaches of Horsforth, but unfortunately Springfield went into receivership in 1982.

In 1983 Peter established Hunters Coaches with a Bedford YRQ Plaxton 45 seater and has built the business up over the years, in 2004 Frank Healey joined the business as a partner and the business thrived, today there are 19 vehicles, 10 Double Deckers, 1 Single Deck Scania L94, 7 Coaches; 34, 39 and 53 seaters a Sixteen seat mini. The work undertaken is school/work contracts, tours round Britain and general coaching. Peter tried stage carriage operations after deregulation with Optional Bus, but found it was difficult to get and retain reliable drivers.

Peter also undertook continental tours for Leger, but now prefers only UK work. Hunters Coaches was founded and built up by a Yorkshireman in the same way as Sam Ledgard built his bus company. Peter and I are still close friends.

View Article by Andrew Grayson