Get on the Magic Bus

Today was supposed to be day one of the new 45 bus service on the Dengie. This would replace the D4 and Dart 5 with a much-reduced timetable combining those two buses. The scheduled services would be reduced to two a day in either direction, Monday to Friday, with the Saturday service lost entirely. The Dengie Hundred Bus Users Group (DHBUG) had intervened to tweak the timetable in Essex County Council [ECC]’s tender as the original proposal gave little time at the route’s destination before returning. As many users depended on the bus to do their weekly shop they would have found themselves with less than an hour to do so. At the DHBUG AGM on 7 June, many attendees were furious about the changes and reduction in service – but ECC didn’t send anyone to the meeting and Arrow Taxis who had won the tender sent a message saying that it wasn’t worth them coming as they didn’t know anything about what was going on past what had been published already.

So, last week was the final run of the D4 – but on Friday it didn’t turn up – leaving bus users stranded. Slowly information started to leak out. On Wednesday, the drivers had been told to come to an emergency meeting on Thursday morning. They were told they had lost their jobs and that there would be no bus service on those final days.

On Friday, Arrow Taxis put out a statement on Facebook.

It is with great regret, that we must announce that Essex and Suffolk DaRT and Arrow Taxis have ceased trading today with immediate effect.

As far as we are aware, the 45 route between Bradwell and South Woodham Ferrers will be taken over by Stephenson’s of Essex, and the 332/3/4 route will be taken over by Vectare. We have no knowledge of the plans for the other routes, so please contact Essex County Council for further information.
We are so sorry for this, but had no alternative options. The cause was losses of passenger numbers since 2020 and spiralling costs. We would all like to sincerely thank all our passengers drivers, employees for supporting us over the years. You have been a wonderful bunch of people and we loved serving you, and absolutely hate having let you down.

Caught by surprise, ECC managed to put out their own statement late that day but it offered little reassurance to passengers.

Above, two different timetables but does a bus serve either?

On Saturday, Claire saw an unfamiliar double-decked at Southminster Rail Station’s bus stop – was this a Stephenson’s bus? Later the same day, I met Allan Brignall, Chair of DHBUG, at the Tillingham Flower Show and discussed the Arrow situation where he informed me that Stephenson’s were intending to run the 45 to the pre-tweaked timetable – starting at South Woodham Ferrers at 9am rather than Bradwell-on-Sea. DHBUG were seeking assurance from ECC that it should run to the adjusted timetable.

This morning (Monday), Allan sent out an email to all DHBUG committee members passing on a message from ECC that:

No decision has been made as to who will be taking over the new service 45. There will be no service today at least. We apologise for the inconvenience this will cause.

Allan noted that, as ECC had not yet placed the contract, he imagined that it would not be running any time soon. He asked us to inform anybody we knew who might be intending to use the service. Jennie Donnelly posted this information on the DHBUG social media channels and shared it to local Facebook groups.

A couple of hours ago a bus user in Tillingham reported that:

Have just been told by Stephensons that Essex County Council have changed the route around so the bus will start at South Woodham Ferrers at about 9 am before going on its journey to Bradwell where it will turn around. Therefore Tillingham will have the first bus at about 11.20 am!!! It sounds like it will be really hard to get back to Tillingham as well. Am waiting for a phone call from ECC bus transport to see what is happening and what the new timetable will be. No buses here in Tillingham since last Thursday grrr. 😡 Who from South Woodham Ferrers needs to travel to Burnham or Bradwell at that time of day? And when do Essex County Council intend to let us know the new timetable and when it is going to start running? I had an appointment in Maldon today, no chance of getting there

An hour ago Jennie replied to that comment:

DHBUG have asked ECC to use the last agreed timetable (from Arrows starting at Bradwell at 9.00). As post mentioned ECC have not decided who will run the service yet though, I agree, only company mentioned in unofficial discussions is Stephensons.

adding a correction shortly afterwards:

Apologies Judy, Stephensons are running the 45 today starting at Asda at 9.00. DHBUG have asked for a joint statement from ECC that has been agreed with Stephensons.

as another commenter noted in the same thread:

Why have they done this to us? This has been a shit show from start to finish 😡🤬

Everyone is in the dark and DHBUG’s ability to communicate what is happening accurately is stymied by the inconsistency of the communications we receive ourselves

I went out to my local bus stop, which is on the route, to see if the 45 came in at 13.51 (the 13.30 bus from Woodham) – it didn’t. I was there 5 minutes before and for 15 minutes afterwards. It is 26c in the shade right now, let’s hope no one vulnerable is waiting outside at some rural stop for this bus. The timetable at my bus stop still shows the D4, it hasn’t been changed yet. Google Maps, bustimes.org and the TravelEssex app no longer feature the D4 and they don’t give the 45 times either. Stephenson’s website has no information about the service and their Facebook page hasn’t been updated for 14 years.

The 45 proposals were roundly disliked by bus users, and with its timetabled service only being procured until 2026 (plus 1 year dependent on usage) it seemed destined to fail and be cut completely in the near future. It appears to be a token compromise to virtue signal that a rural population isn’t being completely abandoned, but it would serve existing users poorly and encourage zero new users. The high-level transport strategies are full of talk about ‘mobility hubs’ and ‘modal shift’ and ‘multi-modal journeys’ – but without delivery on the ground of improvements such as integrated ticketing, synchronised bus and train timetables, services at times that allow people to get to work and education, modern electric vehicles with wi-fi and charging facilities – all we are left with are unreliable mini-buses for time-rich pensioners with free passes. Every cancelled or delayed bus has a negative multiplier effect on how many people will choose buses for their mobility needs – an entire service collapsing like this is deadly to modal shift. A company, like Arrow Taxis, looking ahead at the uncertainty of short-term contracts on services bound to flop is unlikely to find a value proposition worth the risk. Now, a nearly 40-year-old business has folded, local people have lost jobs, local villagers have lost opportunities and mobility, the roads will get busier and more congested with individual journeys, and exhaust and noise pollution will increase. Somebody, somewhere is still standing waiting for a bus that will not come.

[Update Monday evening: I now understand that Stephenson’s will be running the 45 as a ‘commercial’ (receive no ECC subsidy) service until ECC contract the service. To the timetable on the left above I believe.

As a commercial service I presume it will fall under the UK Govt subsidised £2 price cap making the fares cheaper, for those passengers that pay them, than they have been for years (ECC subsidised buses don’t qualify for the UK Govt cap and are therefore, generally, more expensive. The lack of national support for these buses and the fact that these buses are thus not covered by the much-publicised £2 cap must have contributed negatively to both ridership and bus company finances).]

Last week was the one-year anniversary of the closing date of the Maldon District Future Transport Strategy consultation to which I, and no doubt many others, replied. Nothing has been published since. In April, I asked a County Councillor what was happening with the Strategy and when it would be published. I was told that publication had been “delayed by the local elections” – an event long in the calendar and, in any case, Essex barely had any local elections in 2024, it wasn’t a County Council or District Council election year here. Last week, via two different channels I asked Maldon District Council when it would be published and received two replies:

Via EMail:

Thank you for your information request on the Maldon District Future Transport Study.

As far as the Council is aware the results of the study will be published sometime in September of this year. The Council Council are carrying out an all Councillor briefing early in September with Maldon District Councillors and it is suppose to be published after that. This document belongs to Essex County Council so the District Council does not have any control over its timetabling. I can tell you that it was delayed because of the general election, this is because local authorities in general do not publish documents of any weight during election campaigning periods.

Via Instagram comments:

Hi James, the Maldon District Future Transport Strategy is led by Essex County Council and is unfortunately delayed due to changes within Essex County Council. We understand that the strategy should be published at some point in September of this year – Hope this helps 😊


It doesn’t really help, it’s more delay and dithering. Ignoring, the “nothing to do with us Guv” stance and the differing excuses, there remains a repeat of a larger pattern seen across several transport strategy documents in Essex of putting off difficult decisions to some later date. Whether it’s active travel, public transport, or sustainable mobility solutions fit for our net zero future – it’s all happening too slowly and in most cases not at all.

A couple of years ago, the national post-COVID rhetoric was ‘Bus Back Better’ and Essex had its own ‘Bus Services Improvement Plan’ but speak with people at a bus stop and you don’t hear the words ‘better’ or ‘improvement’. The new government has pledged to empower local transport authorities and to allow every community to decide their own bus system, but I don’t sense any enthusiasm from ECC to take back control and run the buses here. Dependence on private businesses that can go under at any time does not make for a resilient transport strategy, and cannot ‘deliver a better, stronger
bus network’ to ‘reap the environmental, economic and social benefits that will flow
from… [Bus Service] improvements.’

Somebody, somewhere is still standing waiting for a bus that will not come.