How it started
History
In 1997, Stagecoach was ordered by the Office of Fair Trading to divest of its operations in Milton Keynes and Huntingdon. This followed an investigation in 1996 into its acquisition of Cambus Holdings which was deemed to have led to an unacceptable monopoly of bus operations in Cambridgeshire, Corby, East Northamptonshire, Kettering, Wellingborough, Bedford and Mid Bedfordshire.
The assets of Milton Keynes Citybus were purchased on 2 May 1997 by bus entrepreneur Julian Peddle, using a new company Premier Buses Limited both to operate in Huntingdon (under the Premier Buses brand name) and also as a holding company with which to purchase MK Metro. The operation was rebranded as MK Metro with a bright yellow and blue livery introduced.
In February 2006, Premier Buses Limited was purchased by Arriva, with the MK Metro business retained as an independent brand within its Arriva Shires & Essex subsidiary. A new logo introduced in 2007.
On 25 April 2010, the Arriva brand and livery were introduced. Milton Keynes services began to operate under the sub brand of MK Star, and the change of name coincided with a number of controversial service changes. Among these services included the 'platinum MK' route brand, introducing a fleet of silver Mercedes-Benz Citaros on service 300 between Central Milton Keynes and the Magna Park logistics centre.
From Wikipedia’s article on MK Metro, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2