History
Hackney Community Transport was established in 1982 when 30 community groups in the London Borough of Hackney formed a pool of six vehicles with a grant from Hackney Borough Council to provide low-cost van and minibus hire for local community groups, and a door-to-door alternative to public transport for people with disabilities.[7] The company's services were staffed by volunteers,[7] but over the next decade a small group of paid staff built up to assist the volunteer workforce.[8]
HCT Group received loans from London Rebuilding Society to finance its entry to the bus industry.[9]
In 2004, HCT was contracted by EduAction to deliver 500 local special needs children to school and back each day for London Borough of Waltham Forest from a new depot in Leyton.[10]
In March 2006, HCT expanded outside London to run eight yellow My bus school transport routes in and around Wakefield for West Yorkshire Metro. A further seven runs were added in September[11] and three more in September 2007.[12]
In July 2006, HCT merged with Lambeth & Southwark Community Transport.[11] Later that year on 1 October 2006, HCT began to operate the AccessBus service in Leeds[11] and in 2008, merged with Leeds Alternative Travel.[13]
In March 2009, HCT Group published its first Impact Report.[14] By 2010, HCT had grown by over a hundredfold since 1993 – from a turnover of £202k to a turnover of £23.3 million in 2009/10.[15]
In February 2010, CT Plus Yorkshire took over the Hull 701 Priory Park & Ride route,[16] with the aim of investing any surplus from its park-and-ride operation to expand a local community transport service and to set up training for long-term unemployed people in Hull.[17] This was withdrawn in 2014, with Stagecoach taking over the service. In the same month, the company raised £5 million via a social loan.
In 2017 and 2018, the group completed a series of acquisitions, purchasing Social Access, Bristol;[18] Manchester Community Transport;[19] CT4TC,[20] a Derbyshire community transport operator since renamed Derbyshire Community Transport;[21] Powells, South Yorkshire;[22] and Impact Group, West London.[23]
Dai Powell, who had been chief executive since 1993, announced in April 2020 that he would retire from the post and be replaced by Lynn McClelland.[24]
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a rise in costs for bus operators, HCT Group began to suffer from financial difficulties. On 29 September 2022, after disposing of its commercial bus operations in Yorkshire, Bristol, London and the Channel Islands, HCT Group ceased trading and formally entered administration.[6]
