All change at Redhill Bus Station, then, as Metrobus have taken most of Arriva's operations in the area, both commercial and Surrey CC Contracts. Two of the contract operations are illustrated here, operated mostly with cascaded Single Door DDs from their Orpington operation, but some SDs appear on the 410/411/420/460 routes also... 

Another of the Metrobus Arriva takeover's was the Sutton - Redhill 420. Here is one of Arriva's DD Metrobuses (the Bus) that they loaned to Metrobus (the company), but have since all been returned by the beginning of June 2001, and one of the DD single door NV types from the 261 over at Orpington, which are now the mainstay of the 420/460 operation. This is a Surrey CC contract service - the loadings on these 420s demonstrate perhaps why Arriva decided to pull out of this area - both buses are all but empty on middle of the day journeys, quite unbelievable considering this route on its own now covers most parts of what used to be 3 different reasonably frequent services in years gone by - 164A to Tattenham Corner, 280 to Lower Kingswood and 280A to Tadworth and Walton on the Hill.... Location - both sides of the road at Banstead Victoria.

The takeover of Arriva's Crawley operations, lock, stock and garage took place on 31st March 2001. As many new SLFs as were available from Caetano were bought (as illustrated below on the 409) and were pressed into service with Excel SDs previously from the 358 at Orpington, and some other  Dart SDs from a fellow Go-Ahead Group company in Oxford. Old 358 route branding has mostly been painted out  (apart from the 'low floor' legend 1/2 way along above the widows) on our illustrative Excel at Crawley Bus Station. 

The 409 is now a contract of Surrey CC by Metrobus, taking in the Chelsham Common sections of former 483 and before that 403. It is a now a slow and poor relative of it's former self, and no wonder no-one uses it, since bus stops around Croydon still show it's previous routing via Brighton Road more than 1 month after the routing change!

Further Arriva and cross county boundary contractions meant the revival of the old 483 number for a new 'stop-gap' service in the Chelsham and Tatsfield area. Metrobus picked up the contract, but not much in the way of patronage!

A reasonably rare excursion of one of Orpington's SDs on the otherwise all DD 261 LT tendered service in Bromley High Street

The Croydon Tramlink heralded many new links plus revised and increased services feeding into it. One such is the 464 from rural Tatsfield to the New Addington Parkway Tram Terminus. The service has been upgraded from 1 MB to 2 SD at all times, with a doubling of the frequency daytimes Mon-Sat, and a new Sunday and evening full service introduced.. Teething problems are apparent though from our picture as both 464s are at the New Addington end of the route, the Godstone driver who should be at Tatsfield at this time had a puzzled expression and was grappling with a photocopied map of Biggin Hill when this picture was taken!!