REDUNDANCIES have not been ruled out at Kidderminster’s bus depot which has just changed hands.

Rotala, which owns Red Diamond busses along with others, bought the Worcester Road traffic island site, along with a depot in Redditch from First Group for £1.5 million.

According to Stephen Haselden, group business development manager for Rotala, the Kidderminster site currently runs at a loss which “cannot be sustained in the long term”.

“This means we are going to introduce a number of efficiency measures,” he added. “It is also likely that Kidderminster will need some sort of restructure so we need to do a review.

“In Kidderminster we are not yet sure which jobs will be duplicated after that so there is a potential for some redundancies but that would be a last resort and we would look to redeploy workers first.”

Rotala confirmed it would continue to run the services that First currently operates from the depot which comprises a site of about two acres and can accommodate up to 60 vehicles.

Both sites employ about 120 staff between them.

“We are local to Kidderminster and it is a nice place,” added Mr Haselden. “We already run at Redditch and the link with Redditch is obvious and this acquisition expands our group in the West Midlands.

“Kidderminster is the kind of area we want to be in because we like towns where we can become part of the community. This presents us with an opportunity to provide a top class service for Kidderminster.

The sale was announced this morning and no further plans or timetables have been released yet by the Rotala.