School buses latest

 The TW1 service from Kemsing and Seal to Tunbridge Wells has been secured as part of wider route replacements.

Since the announcement of major commercial bus service withdrawals in early July, Kent County Council’s officers have been working with operators to secure, wherever possible, replacement routes and other mitigations to ensure that children are able to get to school. 

Now with the return to school imminent, the later stages of this work have been coming to a conclusion, and across the county, and in West Kent in particular there is much more comprehensive coverage than seemed likely until recently.

The biggest impact on residents and families in Sevenoaks North and Darent Valley (and in neighbouring areas) has been in the Sevenoaks/ Tonbridge/ Tunbridge Wells travel corridor. The initial solution to this, developed with operators in mid- July, was for many students to change at Sevenoaks bus station. This was the best, perhaps only solution available at the time but gave rise to a lot of concerns: safety of the transfer, longer travel times,  the possibility of missed connections and (perhaps most importantly) the question of whether there would be adequate capacity on the routes going south from Sevenoaks. 

KCC officers were in any case carrying out capacity assessments as the next stage of the work to develop services for September. This was, for a time, trying to hit a moving target as applications for the Kent Travel Saver continue to come in over the summer. The end result, however, was to identify (working with the operators) extra capacity needed for those routes, and ultimately to agree that these buses would run from further back on the route, from the villages outside Sevenoaks. 

The TW3 and TW6 (starting from Shoreham and Badgers Mount respectively) are going direct to Tunbridge Wells, as is the TW4 starting in Westerham. Critically for residents of Kemsing and Seal, the TW1 direct route has now also been secured and will operate on the same route and timetable.

This final and very welcome outcome has come towards the end of the summer holidays, and for many families the wait has been very stressful. This has been a complex and demanding programme of work, done on the basis of collaboration with operators who are themselves under pressure and embracing much of the county’s network.

It is important to say that we are, in many respects, far from being out of the wood. Not all routes are covered in every aspect of what was available previously. Driver shortages and the extra capacity brought into use mean that there is little or no slack in the West Kent network. In East Kent, further service withdrawals have been set out but not yet confirmed by Stagecoach, to which our officers will have to respond. At the end of last week, national government (with whom we have, like many other local authorities, been in discussion about support for the industry) announced £130 million additional funding through the Bus Recovery Grant - but the exact form this will take, and its implications for Kent, remain unclear. Nonetheless, the position locally is much improved on what seemed likely some weeks ago.

You can find KCC’s media release on this here.