READING Buses has announced a string of changes and updates to travel services in and around Reading set to take effect from next month.
From Monday, July 20, two services are set to be cancelled entirely ahead of the school holidays, while a number of other services will see minor changes and updates.
The Pink 22 route between central Reading and Caversham Heights will be cancelled, with Reading Buses citing “successive falls” in the service’s use.
Berry 23/24, Pink 25/25a and Aqua 28/28a will all continue to provide frequent services from Reading to Caversham, however, and school route 81 will also continue to run to Caversham Heights during term time.
Some areas of Caversham Heights will also continue to be served by Thames Travel X40.
The Route 12 between Reading and Twyford will also be cancelled, despite only having been launched in November last year.
Reading Buses again cites less-than-expected use for the service.
Thames Valley Buses routes 127/128/129 will continue to serve this area, along with Carousel Buses routes 127/850, as was the case prior to the service’s launch.
Elsewhere, improvements on other routes include Aqua 28/28a having a more direct route from Reading to Henley.
The service, which operators say has been “a major success” since its introduction, will use Reading Bridge and Prospect Street instead of Caversham Bridge.
This is intended to cut journey times to Henley by around 5 minutes, whilst maintaining connections to central Caversham and providing a service along the full length of Henley Road for the first time.
The timings of Pink 25/25a to Peppard Common will be adjusted alongside this to create a coordinated frequency with Aqua 28/28a between Prospect Street and Reading.
Little Berries 29/29a to Lower Caversham will be doubled in frequency on Sundays to run every 30 minutes, with 29a journeys via central Caversham introduced to match the rest of the week.
There will also be minor timetable changes to improve punctuality on Orange 13/14.
Robert Williams, Chief Executive Officer, said: “Whilst we would like every change we make to be positive, in this case we have had to make the very difficult decision to stop running pink 22 to Caversham Heights.”
“A fearsome combination starting with a poor recovery from the pandemic, followed by extensive road closures, competition on the busiest sections of the route, and rising costs has led to pink 22 no longer covering its basic running costs.
“We can’t expect users of other bus services to pay for that on an ongoing basis.
“Whilst we appreciate that this will be a great loss for the people who still rely on pink 22, some alternatives are available a short distance away – whether it be our school bus, our services to central Caversham, or other operator’s services.
He explained: “We do not take decisions like this lightly but have not been able to identify any alternative after making significant efforts to regrow patronage.
“Our objective is to provide the best possible service for Reading that we can, but it has to be within our own financial means.
“The rest of our network changes are broadly positive and reflect that overall patronage has grown by nearly 1% over the last year.”
Cllr John Ennis, Lead Councillor for Climate Strategy and Transport, said: “We are obviously concerned by the loss of this well-established service to part of Reading and the Council supported the bus company’s efforts to increase patronage through special fare offers.
“However, it is understandable that Reading Buses reacts to the financial conditions that they face. We will continue to explore any opportunity to improve bus provision in this part of the town”.
