Forum topic: Grey Green's garage was in Stamford Hill
Bus strikes start on Friday and are due to continue until October
13 Aug 2026 00:00 #7609- Basil Clarke
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A series of strikes by bus drivers employed by Arriva North London starts on Friday morning and is likely to mean that there will be no service on strike days on all the main routes that serve Palmers Green.
The W6 will be one of many local bus routes that will be affected by the planned strikes (photo: Sean Cirillo
The strikes, scheduled on a list of dates between this Friday and 20th October, have been called by the trade union Unite and are a protest against the alleged failure of the company's management to make provision for tolerable working conditions in bus cabs during hot weather experienced in recent years and particularly this year. The union also accuses the management of “union-busting behaviour”.
As the 329 and W6 will be affected, there are likely to be no buses serving Palmers Green Triangle, and along the North Circular the 34, 102 and SL1 will also be hit. Services serving parts of Palmers Green and run by other bus operators that should not be affected are the 232 (Wood Green to Mill Hill), W4 (which links the Tottenhall Road area to Wood Green and Tottenham), W9 (Southgate to Enfield Town and Chase Farm Hospital via Fox Lane and Hoppers Road) and the 299 (Cockfosters to Muswell Hill via Southgate and Cannon Hill/Broomfield Lane). These are all operated using single-deck buses.
Arriva, which has subsidiary bus companies around the UK, is owned by an American private equity firm, which purchased it from the German state railway operator Deutsche Bahn in 2023. Private equity companies do not have a universally good reputation: the writer Cory Doctorowassociates them with a “long bloody lineage of [...] looting, or if you prefer, 'plundering'”.
Arriva's history can be traced back to coach and bus operator Grey Green, which once had a garage in Wood Green from where it ran services to east London and Southend. In London, of course, most Arriva garages and bus routes were once part of London Transport prior to privatisation by the Thatcher government.
Palmers Green bus garage, like many others, can trace its history back to before the creation of London Transport in the 1930s, and is probably the only bus garage in the country - or the world - that began life as a roller skating rink!
For more information about the planned strikes, see the links below.
Links
London bus drivers ‘breaking down’ from fatigue (Enfield Dispatch 9 August 2026)
Weeks of London bus strikes to hit more than 40 routes from Friday (Ian's Visits 10 August 2026)
London bus drivers to strike for 26 days over heatwave working conditions (Independent 5 August 2026)
North London bus strike to hit 42 routes as 1,500 Arriva drivers walk out Friday (London Bus Forums 11 August 2026)
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Grey Green's garage was in Stamford Hill
13 Aug 2026 08:56 #7610- Jeremy Buck
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Grey Green's garage was in Stamford Hill
19 Aug 2026 17:18 - 19 Aug 2026 18:12 #7614- Basil Clarke
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The Grey-Green Coaches offices and garage were at Stamford Hill not Wood Green. The company ran services to the east coast...rather than east London !
I did a search for details of the 251 and found an article tracing its history right back to 1927 and as far forward as 2000, when it ceased to run.
In its heyday there were four buses an hour from Wood Green to towns in Essex. I'm curious as to why - this doesn't seem an obvious connection to me.
As for Grey Green, if I'm not mistaken (again), they only got involved in bus services (as opposed to operating coaches) when the Thatcher government, who had taken over London bus and tube services after abolition of the Greater London Council, began inviting other companies to tender to run London bus routes. Grey Green were one of the first to take advantage of this. Notably, they took over the 24, a major route which runs along Whitehall. In north London their routes included the 125 (Winchmore Hill to Finchley) and the 210 (Finsbury Park to Golders Green), the latter using a unique type of bus with a single-deck body on a chassis designed for double deckers.
The reason why this has come up in relation to bus driver strikes affecting the 121, 329, W6 and many more routes is that Arriva's history can be traced back to Grey Green. The Thatcher government had split London Buses into a number of separate companies. One of them was Leaside Buses, with garages in Palmers Green, Wood Green and Tottenham. The company that owned Grey Green, Cowie, purchased Leaside Buses in the 1990s, and went on to buy more bus operators, eventually becoming the countrywide (and international) bus and train operator Arriva.
As I mentioned last week, Arriva was bought by German rail operator Deutsche Bahn, who a couple of years ago sold it to a US-based private equity company. Such companies do not enjoy a good reputation as regards safeguarding the interests of employees (in this case, drivers) or customers (passengers) and tend to concentrate on squeezing assets to make a quick buck before jettisoning a purchase and moving on. Hopefully, this isn't the case with Squared Capital , the owners of Arriva.
The first few of the planned strike days appears to have brought the company's management to the negotiating table, and some strikes have been cancelled, though they will resume should the talks fail.
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