On 7 September 1986, the south west region of London Country Bus Services was transferred to London Country South West[3] and on 19 February 1988 was sold to the Drawlane Group, which was restructured as British Bus in November 1992.

At this time, the Countryliner group of companies operated around 80 vehicles through Surrey, Hampshire and Sussex.

In addition to this, more contracts were awarded to operate between Petersfield and Chichester and Midhurst on behalf of West Sussex County Council.

Incorporated were Bob Hodgetts, Roger Belcher, James Holmes and Craig White, the former two of which are company directors.

However, the latter two represent Merchant Corporate Recovery plc, who paid £200,000 for a 51% stake in Countryliner Group, and who also provided a working capital facility of £300,000, showing extra cash had to be put into the business.

[13] Merchant Corporate Recovery valued Countryliner's assets at the time as £1million and said it had made pre-tax profits of £250,000 for the first half of 2009.

In November, a High Court hearing to wind up three of the Countryliner Group's companies, under the Insolvency Act 1986, was adjourned until January.

With Countryliner operating around 150 vehicles with around 200 staff at the time from five depots in Hampshire, Surrey, West and East Sussex and into Kent,[13] it caused worry among passengers and local authorities.

[14] Countryliner made no comment but to confirm services were operating normally and that a restructuring was underway.

It emerged that the winding up order had been started by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) over an unpaid debt.

Director Roger Belcher said, "There was an outstanding debt to HMRC and they issued winding-up orders even though our negotiators were speaking to them at the time."

As per what Roger Belcher expected in January, all debts were paid off in time for the hearing and that case too was thrown out.

The service interworked with routes 462/3 to Woking (and from there the 73 to Chobham), with through fares available, although the workings did cause large problems with punctuality until February 2011 revisions.

[17] Further financial problems surfaced on 1 March 2011 when Fisher Partners, a business recovery specialist, informed creditors that Countryliner Coach Hire Limited had failed to keep up its payments to HMRC, against the terms of the creditors voluntary agreement, and said that they were to petition a winding up order against Countryliner.

At a three-day public inquiry finishing on 16 March 2011, just two out of five of the company's operator licences being investigated survived being cut by Traffic Commissioner Philip Brown.

A condition was attached that no new EU work could be taken on, and director Geoffrey Shaw was banned with immediate effect from holding or obtaining an O-licence for two years.

[19][21] The Countryliner Limited licence, with authorisation for 15 vehicles, and with the other half of the Surrey routes on it, received a formal maintenance warning after a high MOT failure rate and was allowed to continue, again with the condition it must not take on any new EU work.

[19] The final licence held by Countryliner Group, RJB (UK) Limited, with five O-licences for buses based at Borden, Hampshire, was not part of the inquiry, being in the Western Traffic Area as opposed to the South Eastern and Metropolitan area.

[22] Countryliner are to focus on a reduced amount of local bus work, it is intended that by October 2011 all routes will have moved on to the Countryliner Sussex Limited licence, and by then most of the coach fleet will have been disposed of after the revocation of the C&S Coach Travel Limited licence.

Also due to Hampshire county council cuts Countryliner now operate the previously stagecoach run route 41 .

[32][33] From 21 January 2013, RJB's last remaining routes passed to Velvet (Petersfield Town Service 94 and Alton Cango C41/C42)[34] and Stagecoach Hants & Surrey (41 Farnborough - Ash)[35] on three month temporary Hampshire CC contracts.