BLACKPOOL Transport's profits were not quite the ticket last year when a rain-hit holiday season kept visitors off buses and trams.

The company's annual report for 1998-99, presented to Blackpool Council last week, showed operating profits plummeted more than 50 per cent, from £1.06m the previous year to just £452,000.

Commercial director David Eaves said: "The main reason was the very poor holiday trade and dreadful weather that Blackpool and the rest of the North West experienced last year.

"It was mainly the trams that suffered. But we have seen an upturn this year with an improved holiday season, and we're hoping for a better return."

The company, whose 730-strong workforce runs buses along the coast from Lytham St Annes to Fleetwood, also had to cover the £123,000 costs last year of closing down the former Fylde Transport depot at Squires Gate, which it acquired in 1994, and the ailing Seagull coaches business.

Concentrating its operations on its main site in Rigby Road would mean savings, said the company report, and the Squires Gate depot and Seagull office were now up for sale.

The company continued to upgrade its fleet, with 14 new Optare Metroriders, costing £811,000, and has ordered nine new Optare Excel low-floor buses (giving easier access for the disabled and prams) and 15 low-floor minibuses, totalling £1.9m, for this year.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.