Evening, Sunday & rural routes under threat

The Brentwood Gazette reports that Essex County Council are looking to wield their bus axe again.

This time, late evening journeys on the 73 are under threat, but all routes funded by the council will be being reviewed to see where a cut can be made. This means all evening, Sunday and rural routes in Essex are under threat.

The County Council are still consulting on what their bus priorities should be, so make sure you take part in their survey before 21st October.

The changes currently proposed for Brentwood are:
21A: Essex wants to withdraw this route leaving Brentwood with no link to Ongar after late afternoons.
73: The last bus of the evening is to be withdrawn Mon-Sats. Here's the proposed timetable for subsidised journeys on Mon-Sat evenings:

251: No more Sunday trips to Southend, as this route will be curtailed to run between Warley and Wickford only. Here's the proposed timetable:

898: It is proposed to withdraw this route from Blackmore via Doddinghurst and Brentwood to Romford.

New 9 timetable / TfL Rail lowers fares

First have released the new timetable for the 9, which will apply from 5th July. Only a few morning journeys have been retimed.

Not quite bus related, but you may have noticed that the trains from Brentwood station are now operated by TfL Rail rather then Abellio Greater Anglia. This is the first step of the transition to Crossrail.

For now, it means lower rail fares for some journeys as train travel from Greater London to Brentwood now uses the same fare scale as the tube, rather than a premium being charged for what was a National Rail service.

The line is still technically part of National Rail however, meaning a through rail ticket to or from any other railway station in the UK is still available to/from Brentwood. A paper rail ticket is still needed in order to buy a Brentwood/Shenfield Plusbus ticket.

Sunday Saver price rise

The Essex County Standard is reporting that the County Council are soon to increase the price of the Sunday Saver ticket from £2.80 to £4 for an adult.

The ticket is valid on all buses that run across Essex every Sunday and even with the price rise is one of the best value bus tickets in the whole country.

Please note that the Sunday Saver is not valid on some TfL routes that run into Essex, including the 498 to Brentwood.

The price rise takes place on Sunday 14th June. See the official announcement here.

Early evening Ongar journeys reinstated: 21A

The two weekday early evening journeys on the 21 that no longer serve Brentwood have now been reinstated, with a catch: they are subsidised by the county council and are operated by EOS. Townlink still run the commercial daytime service and it looks like EOS do not accept Townlink tickets, so if you're not a pensioner you'll have to either pay again or use an Essex Saver ticket, which is valid on both.

The reinstated journeys are numbered 21A and you can see the timetable here.

The main 21 timetable is here.