From the 1968 Transport Act emerged various operating bodies to manage Road and Rail Transport. For the city of Manchester and it’s surrounding towns this operation became known as SELNEC (From November 1969) depicting South east Lancashire & North East Cheshire. The intake of vehicles from 11 City & Town councils including from to the north, and stockport in the south totalled over 2,000 buses over a period of time. Difficulties arose in trying to transfer buses to various towns due to lack of standardisation on the fleet, with that in mind, engineers at SELNEC worked together with Wigan based bodybuilder Northern Counties to design a standard bus which could be easily maintained at all of the operators depots.
From the 1973 intake of Park Royal vehicles built to a similar specification, 7143 (first registered on the 8th January of that year), was one of the Southern standards delivered numbering 7110-7145. The vehicle continued in service in the GMPTE (Greater Manchester Public Transport Executive), after de-regulation in 1986, although did not transfer to the later GM Buses (Greater Manchester) fleet.
Following a massive sell off of their surplus double fdeck fleet the bus was retained by the PTE & repainted and used as a promotional & route testing vehicle.
In 1991 following negotiations with SELNEC Preservation Society the bus was purchased by the group on the first of November that year with a view to restoring it to it’s original SELNEC livery & condition. It languished in their yard for 15 years as other restorations took precedence and it was put up for sale.
In 2016 it’s current owner bought the bus to join his growing restoration projects and later joined the Town & District Transport Trust collection where it stands today awaiting restoration.
