First Solent have published their next round of improvements for bus services in Waterlooville. The Hilsea depot of First Hampshire & Dorset seem to be competing with their colleagues in Hoeford as to which depot is back to full service first!
I jest of course, there is unlikely to be any inter-depot rivalry (?) but here are the changes:
04 October
D1 / D2 (Waterlooville to Denmead and Hambledon) regains a full weekday service. The Saturday service is not quite there yet, but maybe soon.
It would be nice to see this service extended at some point. With the reduced capacities in buses and the increasing services; I wonder if a temporary (or permanent) extension to QA Hospital Grounds and Cosham would help during the daytime?
7A (Closed Contract – Oaklands School) has a tweak to its morning trips.
Star 8 (Gunwharf and City to Waterlooville and Clanfield) has a complete timetable change, reflecting the traffic on the roads. The frequencies are largely the same though. Look…. just download the timetable, but here is a summary:
Weekdays, there are more buses in the early morning with an earlier 5am service from Clanfield to Gunwharf and a reinstated 23:24 late night service from Gunwharf as far as Horndean. There is also more running time for buses during the day, reflecting the increase in cars on the road.
Surprisingly, I think, the 8 is still routed via the QA Hospital grounds rather than straight down the London Road via “QA Steps.” This was introduced during the days of the keyworker service and I expect that at some point both the Star 7 and the Star 8 services will run direct again.
Saturdays, the first service from Clanfield at 05:33 is cancelled and there are tweaks to other early morning times. The evening timetable also has changes with all services after 6pm being retimed. The 23:24 bus returns on Saturdays as well as weekdays.
It should also be noted that there is now an extra 10 minutes running time as well, which will change the timetable.
Sundays see the biggest change in the mornings though. Early morning trips from Gunwharf & City towards QA Hospital are cut back. The pre-7am departures are cancelled and the first bus up from Commercial Road is now 07:10.
Extra running time means that the 20 minute frequency remains, but the whole timetable changes.
First Solent have been relatively good at keeping their COVID page up to date, so you might want to go and have a look. The timetables for this weekends service changes are in place and it is good to see that they are fairly rapidly re-introducing the infrequent services to the villages.