Kent County Council financially supports a number of bus services, including several operated by Chalkwell. Due to budget constraints KCC have recently carried out a public consultation about a potential withdrawal of 55 bus services across the County.
KCC have now made a decision, and as things stand, the following services are among those that will be withdrawn at the end of October 2022.
360 Sunday Service – (Monday to Saturdays unaffected) Rushenden, Sheerness, Leysdown
8/9/343/344/345 – Monday to Saturday service withdrawn entirely. Affects Sittingbourne and various villages.
332 – Stockbury to Sittingbourne Schools service
662/664/666 – Services to Faversham and Lynsted schools
HS7/HS8 – Charing and Pluckley to Homewood school
All other services that we operate will remain, including those to Wye School, Island Buses 360/361/362/367, 326/327/328, 321 and IB services to Sittingbourne Schools.
We very much value our driving staff, all of who will be redeployed on other work.
If you are conerned about how service withdrawals will afecct you and your community, please contact your local KCC councillor here.
Should you wish to contact your MP, you should also do so here.
At the same time as Kent are making withdrawals, they have been awarded £35m of Government funding to improve local bus networks. While this funding cannot be used to support existing services, we are working with Kent in order to maximise the opportunities that the investment presents. This could include new routes, ticketing initiatives and highway alterations to support more buses going forwards.
We will endeavour to update our customers as and when we have more information.