Andrew Wickham, the managing director of Poole-based bus operator Go South Coast, passed away last weekend after a long battle with cancer

 
Andrew Wickham: 1966-2025

 
BY Andrew Garnett

The bus industry has reacted with shock to the news that Go South Coast managing director Andrew Wickham passed away last weekend after a long battle with cancer. 

The dedicated family man, who had recently received an MBE, presented by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, for services to the bus industry, was 58. A graduate of Aston University’s fabled transport management programme, his career in the industry spanned almost 40 years.

Wickham stepped down from his role late last week when it became clear he could no longer fulfil his commitments. Go South Coast finance director Ben Murray will take on the position on an interim basis until a successor is appointed.

“On behalf of everyone at Go-Ahead and Go South Coast, I want to pass on our deep condolences to Andrew’s family and loved ones,” said Miguel Parras, chief executive of Go South Coast parent Go-Ahead. “Andrew was a fantastic colleague, and he will be greatly missed. He made a big impression on our business and we will honour his legacy at the appropriate time.”

Parras’s comments were echoed by Martin Dean, the managing director of Go-Ahead’s regional UK bus division. “I had the privilege of working with Andrew for 26 years,” he said. “His enthusiasm and passion for serving his community was admirable and the loyalty of his team at Go South Coast is a testament to Andrew’s character. We will all miss him.”

A native of Sussex, Andrew Wickham began his career in the bus industry in 1986 with the then-council-owned Brighton Borough Transport, working during his vacations while studying for a degree in transport operations and planning. A year later, he became a traffic assistant before assuming management of the recently acquired Lewes Coaches business. Industry commentator Roger French, who was managing director of Brighton & Hove at the time, noted that a clearly talented Wickham quickly turned around the business, making it “into something operationally sound against all the odds”.

Keen to progress, Wickham joined London General in 1992, which, at the time, was still part of state-owned London Regional Transport and led by future Go-Ahead chief executive Keith Ludeman. There, he enjoyed a varied career, taking on roles such as manager of Central London Midibuses, based in the basement of Victoria Garage, and leading efforts to improve service quality.

By the turn of the millennium, following the management buyout and subsequent sale of London General to Go-Ahead, Wickham was working in a business development role. This included responsibility for the high profile Millennium Transit bus services connecting the troubled Millennium Dome at North Greenwich. Shortly afterwards, his role expanded into a broader remit that included the parent company. He worked closely with deputy group chief executive Chris Moyes on a variety of projects, including subsequently aborted plans to launch a new, clean-sheet bus operation in the West Midlands.

Andrew’s mantra of running a bus company not being rocket science and to keep it simple was so refreshing

Stability came in 2003 when he was parachuted in as operations director of Poole-based bus operator Wilts & Dorset, which had been recently purchased by Go-Ahead. Working alongside managing director Alex Carter, Wickham was instrumental in relaunching the bowl-of-spaghetti-like networks of the operator into something easier to understand and use. Meanwhile, services on the core Poole–Bournemouth corridor were upgraded under the ‘More’ brand.

After a stint as managing director of Plymouth Citybus, which was acquired by Go-Ahead from its local council owners in 2009, Wickham returned to the Poole-based business in 2011 as managing director following the departure of Carter. Privately, he would admit that it was a move he didn’t particularly wish to make, as he felt he had not completed what he wanted to do at Plymouth. However, he took on his new role with gusto. One of his first acts was to dispense with the all-encompassing Wilts & Dorset identity for the operations in Poole and Salisbury that he felt was holding the operator back from unleashing its full potential. In its place came local identities that aimed to resonate with the communities they served.

What followed over the next 14 years was a period of stability, during which Go South Coast went from strength to strength, winning multiple awards, including the prestigious Bus Operator of the Year accolade on numerous occasions.

There was also expansion, beginning in 2017 when Go-Ahead acquired council-owned Thamesdown Transport, based in Swindon. Industry lore has it that Wickham’s business plan for the purchase was just a single side of A4 paper. It outlined a now-familiar strategy: a simplified network supported by a new, more locally focused brand. Out went the Thamesdown name; in came Swindon’s Bus Company.

However, his expertise and leadership skills, as well as his savvy ability to just get the job done, were most evident in 2022 when Bournemouth-based rival Yellow Buses collapsed, potentially leaving large areas of the town without a bus service. Wickham and his team took on over 80 buses’ worth of work with only a 24-hour gap – a feat that was applauded by the local community. 

He repeated the act, but without such urgency, in early 2023 when First Bus withdrew from its Southampton-based bus operation. Wickham and senior managers, by now comprising operations director David Lee-Kong, finance director Ben Murray and engineering director Steve Hamilton, swooped. It left Go South Coast’s Bluestar business as the city’s dominant bus operator.

An industry enthusiast

It could be argued that Wickham was one of a shrinking pool of senior industry managers. Someone who was clearly an enthusiast for the industry, someone who valued and cherished its rich vein of history. A regular volunteer at running days like ImberBus, Wickham was someone who was unapologetically passionate about buses and the wider industry. 

“I’ve always been a massive bus fan,” he recently told Passenger Transport columnist Alex Warner. “Three weeks into doing A-levels, I thought, ‘What the hell am I going to do with a physics degree?’ – the most likely next step – becoming a teacher, which might have seemed the most conventional pathway, was not for me; I wanted to do something I’m interested in.”

In a world where it seems more and more senior leaders manage by tediously repetitive ‘buzzword bingo’ social media post, Wickham was one of the few remaining with an undeniable talent for gut instinct; he focused on the basics and he did so unpretentiously and with aplomb. 

“Buses are a local business; you can’t plan the network in Bournemouth in Aberdeen,” he told Warner. “Even from Poole, it is a challenge; demand is on a bus stop level. Not like a supermarket – you have a baby, you buy Pampers – the demand is more nuanced.”

Warner said this weekend that Wickham had mastered the art of running a successful bus company like no one else. “He was slightly maverick in his approach but in a way that was always common sense, logical and brought folk onside with him,” he added. 

“He knew how to play the corporate game effectively and shrewdly, and he understood his local markets intimately, delivering for them great customer service and compelling brands that resonated with the communities served by his businesses.”

Warner believes Wickham was an inspiration for generations of fledgling managers, developing their careers and being an inspiring but down-to-earth role model. He continued: “His honesty, charm, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial approach was an absolute breath of fresh air, so too was his visible pleasure, right until the end, to keep his ear to the ground for the latest industry titbits and word on the street.

“Year upon year his businesses won awards and Andrew’s mantra of running a bus company not being rocket science and to keep it simple was so refreshing in the modern day world of overly engineered complexity, bureaucracy and stultifying uniformity. He was a genius.”

 
This article appears in the latest issue of Passenger Transport.

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