A NEW venture will see a Portishead businesswoman swap cakes for coaches.

Carolyn Alderton has put her High Street café Scrumptious up for sale after snapping up one of the area’s long-standing coach companies.

This week Carolyn takes the helm at North Somerset Coaches in Nailsea which has been operating for more than 40 years.

The mum-of-two said: “Scrumptious will continue to run as usual until a new owner is found but running coaches is in my blood and buying this company was an opportunity I couldn’t miss.”

Carolyn comes from a family with a passion for quality bus and coach travel. She has previous experience working with Devon-based company Carmel Coaches, run by her relatives, and plans to take North Somerset Coaches under the family firm’s umbrella.

She added: “I will be the hands-on transport manager of North Somerset Coaches which will be renamed Carmel Bristol. We will continue to run all the existing services with the same excellent level of service and add new opportunities.”

The Nailsea depot will be the third in the Carmel group, which also has bases in Okehampton and Exeter. With the new acquisition the organisation will have a total of 53 vehicles over the three depots, employing more than 100 people.