Gazette slams poor service from First

The Brentwood Gazette has published this article highlighting several problems with the services provided by First in our town. Route 9 is singled out as being particularly unreliable.

How do you find service levels on the routes you use regularly? Leave a comment and let us know.

Formal warning for First over punctuality

First Essex has been issued with a formal warning by the Deputy Traffic Commissioner for the East of England, Marcia Davis, for running too many services behind schedule or not at all.

The Harlow Star tells how bosses were summonsed to explain themselves after passengers complained to the Traffic Commissioner about buses not running to time. A bus is officially classed as not running to time if it:

• is more than one minute early
• is more than five minutes late
• doesn't run at all

First have pledged to improve services in Essex. The Traffic Commissioner's full written report will be out in a few days time.

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.