There are changes coming up for First Solent in the Gosport and Fareham area, which for locals, you might have already seen the local MP being up in arms about. It appears that there will be other changes as well that Caroline Dinenage MP might not have picked up on.
Changes appear to be taking effect on Sunday 7th June.
Firstly you might have seen service changes shown for the 3 and 7 in Portsmouth on the Service Changes page…. they are simply for roadworks but apparently it is a sizable diversion between Commercial Road and North End!
Service 5
I know… if you look at the service registration (or indeed what it automatically sent to the Service Changes page) then your eyes do not deceive you and someone at First Solent overlooked something:
5: Fareham Bus Station to Gosport Bus Station via Woolston, Locks Heath, Fareham (Variation to timetable) from Sunday 7 June 2026.
I am being petty, the timetable is more accurate. The timetable also shows a new late evening service Monday to Saturday. No, it is not all simple sailing though…..
Monday to Friday the service runs hourly from 1905 to 2305 from both Fareham and Gosport Bus Stations. Saturday it appears to be 1930 to 2230. The bus duties appear to simply be hourly from the existing last bus of the day, unless the pubs shut half an hourly earlier on Saturdays?
The timetable can be found here on the HantsBus website.
Service 9
All trips on the service 9A will be removed and the full timetable will run as service 9.
This means that, as it stands at the moment, some parts of Rowner Road and Nobes Avenue will no longer have a bus service. First Solent have replied to The News stating that it was due to low usage on the 9A trips that prompted the change and that Henry Cort Way has a frequent Eclipse service.
Caroline Dinenage MP was referring to the Rowner Road section of the 9A, First Solent appears to be referring to the Nobes Avenue section of the 9A.
Either way – the new timetable can be found here.
Eclipse E1 and E2
There are a number of changes to the Sunday timetable.
Both services will now run every 20 minutes during Sunday daytimes and then every 40 minutes Sunday evenings.
There are also some minor timing changes to Monday to Saturday evening services.
Timetables are not ready or certainly my ones are not…. apparently Hoeford (A32) is a principle stop and none of the stops on the BRT are! While I dig through why – I will try and get them to you ASAP.
Park & Ride PR3
The Tipner Park & Ride to Clarence Pier service returns this year, with the service being operated again this year by First Solent. As you know there was a previously uploaded timetable that was quickly pulled around 24 hours after I mentioned it last month.
Now… according to VOSA the service starts on 07 June. BusTimes is showing a service on 06 June. My money is on Saturday 06 June being the first day of the season for the PR3 and the timetable is available here. It is a shame that the PD3 Queen Mary could not make an appearance…. would the £50 a day CAZ fee be worth it?