History of Hartshead Travel

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Hartshead travel started trading in 1990 with a 25 seater mini coach, a 12 seater and a 16 seater mini bus.

It specialised in private hire work and local authority contracts - taking children to special schools in the Manchester area.

Eventually it became more successful and bought another mini coach and did stage carriage with it, mainly operating in the Mossley area into Manchester serving our local community who had difficulty getting transport to work in the city. Unfortunately this came to an end with deregulation and the larger companies took over the run.

Along side the excursion programme, Hartshead specialised in private hire, school trips, weekend and continental holidays.

In 2006 the premises and yard from which Hartshead operated were sold for re-development and Courtesy Coaches of Oldham bought the trading name and vehicles and have carried on doing the private hire and excursion programme along side of their own work.

At the time, Hartshead were parking their coaches at the Thomas Williams yard in Mossley. Mr Williams retired in 2000 and Hartshead bought his business along with their first 53 seater coach. The mini coaches were sold, and a 35 seater coach was purchased to run along side the 53 seater coach.

On purchasing Williams Coaches, the company inherited the excursion programme that Williams Coaches had operated in the Mossley area.Hartshead Travel eventually expanded these excursions into the Saddleworth, Stalybridge, Dunkinfield and Ashton areas, buying another 53 seater coach to undertake the work.