London Country North East

In the run-up to deregulation, London Country Bus Services (LCBS) was broken into four smaller companies on 7 September 1986. Three hundred and fifty buses, the garages at Hatfield, Hertford, Stevenage, Harlow, St Albans and the isolated base at Grays formed the new London Country North East (LCNE) company.

Early difficulties with staff conditions and wages, which the company was attempting to simplify from the complex contracts arranged by LCBS, led to strike action by staff in February 1988. Performance levels on contracted routes were already below those expected by the local councils who had awarded LCNE the contracts, and by London Regional Transport. Following the strike three of the company's London contracts (routes 292, 298 and 313) were terminated and awarded to independents.

On 22 April 1988, London Country North East was sold by the National Bus Company, the last of 72 subsidiaries to be privatised. The buyer was Alan Stephenson's AJS Group, which had been formed by the management buyout of West Yorkshire Road Car Company. As part of the sale LCNE's property was bought by Parkdale Holdings and leased back to the company; some was sold for redevelopment, while the remainder was later sold back to LCNE. Parkdale Holdings later went out of business having changed their name to Pavilion Leisure.

A month later LCNE was banned from registering new services for six months by the Traffic Commissioner for failing to operate service in accordance with registrations made. Following poor financial results, AJS decided to split the company in two.

In 20 months of existence London Country North East had lost £5.5 million, on a turnover of £14 million. Two operating subsidiaries were created to help improve the situation, under the control of a single holding company, initially called the London Country Travel Group and later renamed to South of England Travel Group. Its chief executive, Bob Howells, had previously been West Yorkshire Road Car Company's traffic manager. A third company, Cambridge based Premier Travel Services, was added to the group in 1989 but was sold to Cambus in 1991. Both subsidiaries continued to be owned by AJS until 1991, when they were sold to new owners.