New School Year – Stagecoach South

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Updated to include service 77 college day trips and the withdrawal of the 61.

The new school year is coming, it almost feels like the old school year has just ended! We are less than 56 days to September though so without much surprise Stagecoach South’s changes have started to appear with a change date of Sunday 31st August.

There are a few schools and colleges changes, which I will note but gloss over on the basis that schools and colleges have probably paged the information out, but a lot of services are listed for change.

There is also an interesting, but probably simply a typo, change in that service changes previously listed as being run by “Stagecoach in Basingstoke” or “Stagecoach in Andover” are now listed as being run by “Stagecoach in Winchester”. The registration itself is not changing so I would not read much into it, but it was just an anomaly that I thought was interesting. Stagecoach in Portsmouth’s 19 for example does not have this change.

Andover

There is a route and timetable change for service 4 between Picket Piece, the Town Centre and Drove Estate. Essentially trips towards Picket Piece will no longer stop inside Andover Railway station during the day, until the (retimed) trip at 1633.

Most trips are also retimed to leave Harrow Way School 10 minutes earlier and the 1853 trip from Picket Piece to Andover no longer runs.

There will be minor changes to:

• Service 2 to East Anton in the early morning

Basingstoke

There is a service uplift on South Ham’s service 3 Monday to Saturday. The service frequency will increase from every 20 minutes to every 15 minutes. Sundays will remain every 20 minutes.

Probably of minimal note as well, the route was split into an outward and inward back in April, this has now been reversed so it shows as a single circular service.

There is a small timetable change on service 13 reflecting changes to the timetable at Alton College.

Havant

New School Service (for Stagecoach at least) is the 632 Hayling Island & Havant Bus Station to Oaklands School. This is in replacement for the Oaklands School extensions of service 30. It will run via Beachlands then Sandy Point in the morning (per route 30) and the reverse (per route 31) in the evening

There are also minor timetable changes on

• Service 37 to Clanfield and Petersfield
• Hambledon Schools service 654
• Havant Colleges 737 service

Portsmouth

There is a route change in Leigh Park for recently new service 19. This change is to serve more areas in Leigh Park, presumably due to passenger and local feedback. Instead of returning from Park Parade via Purbrook Way, it will now run via Stockheath Road to do a loop of West Leigh.

It appears that Middle Park Way will be served in both directions, although that might also mean an extra vehicle will be needed to maintain the timetable.

There are also minor timetable changes to:

• Service 21 between Gunwharf and Anchorage Park

Winchester

Service 4 will have a route change with the service running between Winchester City Centre and Highcliffe only. Fulflood and Teg Down will no longer be served. The service will run hourly, seven days a week.

Sparsholt service 7 has a route and timetable revision due to demand levels. This means the hourly daytime service is reduced to five trips weekdays and four trips Saturdays. These trips will also serve Teg Down (replacing hourly service 4) for two trips in each direction.

Update: Additional college day only trips will operate on a more direct route as service 77. These will run via a more direct route at times which look like they tie in to the Sparsholt College lesson timetable.

Now my immediate concern is that for Concessionary Pass holders, the 0944 departure from Sparsholt College is now at 0920. I am not familiar enough to know whether many pass holders board between the college and St Stephens Church (at 0930), but that does mean that the next service is now not for three hours.

Service 16 between the City Centre and Houghton has a revised route and timetable to include some schools journeys for Danebury School. The service appears to now run via Harestock (the March Hare) instead of Weeke (Dean Lane Corner). This is a Hampshire County Council contract that has been saved from the cost cutting axe.

Updated: Service 61 between Winchester and Eastleigh and Service 46 between Winchester and North Baddesly are withdrawn due to the loss of funding from Hampshire County Council.

Service 64 to Alton has a change to the timetable and gains extra journeys. It looks like the service will increase to every 20 minutes during the morning and evening rush hour.

Service 69 – Route and Timetable Change

There are quite a few changes to service 69 along multiple parts of it’s route. The changes are fairly significant:

• In Winchester the service will start in The Broadway (Stand 7) and run direct to Twyford via Bar End and the M3.
• In Fareham the service will run from Wickham Square via the A32, Fareham Leisure Centre to West Street and Fareham Bus Station (no longer serving the Railway Station) – the return trip will run via West Street and Trinity Street.

This cuts the end to end trip time down by around 10 minutes, although it also means two significant changes to the route. It also means that the 69 will not be replacing any elements of the First Solent 20, expected to be withdrawn the same weekend.

There is though an earlier trip from Winchester leaving at 0555, although late evening Friday and Saturday trips are largely unchanged. There are also new earlier trips from Wickham at 0617.

There is also a new full Sunday service which runs hourly along the full route to and from Fareham and extends to Winchester Railway Station. The last buses will leave Fareham at 1755 and an extra bus from Wickham at 1935.

There are also revised timetables on

• Cross-city service 2 (Winnall – City – Stanmore) on Sundays
• Service 3 to Harestock – mostly affecting weekends
• Service 5 to Badger Farm with additional running time
• Service 6 to Springvale
• Service 66 to Hursley & Romsey with additional running time

These are positive changes

I am not sure I remember when, for example, the Winchester to Fareham service had such a full Sunday service and it might even be back in the days of when it run to Portsmouth!

There are no timetables appearing on the Stagecoach South website that I can see (insert a grumpy comment about the Stagecoach website being a pain here) but as soon as I see them I might get around to updating this page.

There are other service changes planned at other groups as well, apparently Bluestar have Nightbus changes! Are bus services on the rebound?