It commenced operating on 1 April 1989, being managed by Tom Young, who had previously worked for Midland Red North before moving to London Transport.

The company initially operated from garages in Ash Grove, Walthamstow and Leyton on a network of routes in North-East London.

Forest was wound up in 1991 when the tenders to operate eleven routes in the Walthamstow area were won on the basis of reduced costs.

Forest won the contracts to operate all of the routes, but found that it had bid too low for the work and was forced to cut wages.

[8] This was the first official strike by London bus drivers since 1958, and prompted Harry Cohen, the Member of Parliament for Leyton, to issue an Early day motion in the House of Commons.