A FLEET of colourful state-of-the-art buses will be coming to Southampton over the next few weeks.

First bus will launch a total of 14 new red buses in the city, which represents an investment of £100,000 for the company.

The new buses will all have been refurbished to have leather seats, LED lighting and wood-effect floors with distinctive red customer information inside and pictures of iconic Southampton landmarks on the bulkhead section behind the driver.

The colour was chosen to reflect the official colour of the City of Southampton and its football team.

One route that will benefit from the new buses will be the Service 3 that operates between Lordshill and Thornhill, which will get a fleet of red Volvo B7RLEs.

While Service 1 from Adanac Park to Southampton City Centre will have eight new buses, which will be the Wrights Streetlite midis with 4.5 litre euro 5 engines.

General manager of First Hampshire Chrissie Bainbridge said: “Many older bus users will remember when the whole bus fleet in Southampton was red, or red and white.

“It seemed a wonderful idea to reflect this on our popular ‘the three’ route which will run through the heart of this great city.

“It is also a significant investment by First, which is continuing to enhance and improve its services to our local communities, the aim being making our customer experiences much more enjoyable.

“We look forward to getting feedback from our customers about the improved quality of buses on both services.”