Tour de France stops route 21 on 7th July

The Tour de France comes to Essex on 7th July. While it won't run through Brentwood, it will run through Epping, meaning that Townlink 21 will not be able to run on that day.

All of Brentwood's other buses will be running as normal, but there could be some disruption due to traffic caused by road closures elsewhere in the county.

Check the Twitter feeds on the right for updates on the day. More details about the Tour de France in Essex can be found here.

No cash payments on the 498 from 6th July

If you use the 498 to Romford, then please note that from 6th July, you will no longer be able to pay your bus fares using cash. This applies to all bus routes operated on behalf of Transport for London. Full details here.

Passengers needing to use the 498 and other London buses after 6th July will need to either pay using a contactless bank card or get an Oyster card. Here in Brentwood, Oyster cards can be obtained from the Nisa Metro shop at 96A High Street:

...or from Newstime at 145 Kings Road:

You can't get a new Oyster card at Brentwood railway station, but you can top up an existing Oyster card there.

In Brentwood this only affects the 498 bus. All other buses serving our town will continue to accept cash as usual.

Vintage buses from Shenfield to Ongar and Epping

The heritage Epping and Ongar Railway is running a vintage bus service from Shenfield Station to its main stations at Ongar and Epping every Saturday, Sunday and bank holiday over the summer until early October.

Travel is free for visitors to the heritage railway, but anyone can use the bus for a single fare of £2 to Ongar or £3 to Epping.

A more frequent link to Ongar runs from Brentwood in the form of Townlink 21. It doesn't however run on Sundays, so the vintage bus is definitely filling a gap in provision there.

FirstWeek Essex price cut for Catch The Bus Week

First have a special offer to celebrate Catch The Bus Week, which occurs from Monday 28th April until Sunday 4th May.

During that period, you will be able to buy a FirstWeek Essex valid on all First buses throughout the county for just £24 instead of the usual price of £30.

This will make it temporarily even cheaper than the FirstWeek Basildon Outer, valid in Brentwood, which is £25.

Travel with Hunny closes: Upminster cut off

Travel with Hunny, who run the 848 to Upminster and a few school buses, have ceased trading as of Friday 31st January. This is what their website currently shows:

This means anyone who uses the 848 to get to Upminster (and our nearest Aldi!) will have to find another way to get there. Your quickest alternative is to get the train from Brentwood to Romford and then change there for Upminster - an adult off-peak day return is £6.50 as a paper ticket, but you're better off using Oyster, which will cost you £2.30 each way off peak and £3.00 peak.

If you still want to use the bus to get to Upminster, then you'll need to take the 498 to either Gubbins Lane and then change to the 347; or to Romford and then change to the 248 or 370. All of these buses are run for TfL, so using Oyster, it's £1.45 per journey with a daily bus fare cap of £4.40.

Lakeside is about to get more difficult to visit too. From Monday 17th March, Amber 265 will no longer serve Brentwood. It will continue to operate between West Horndon and Lakeside only. Our only direct bus to Lakeside after that is Ensign X81. The other alternatives are to take First 9 to either Billericay or Basildon and then change to First 100; or take TfL 498 to Romford and then change to the 370.