#WestSussBus - finding out your views on the buses

My husband (who has Alzheimer's) and I regularly use the no 65 bus which takes us into Horsham town. Before Covid it was a half hourly service but was reduced to an hourly service and this has never been rectified to a half hourly bus. This is very inconvenient as if you just miss a bus in town you have to wait a full hour before you can catch another and occasionally it is cancelled so it is a 2 hour wait. In the afternoon it isn't even one an hour between certain hours. Given that the bus is largely used by older people and recently it had become quite crowded, is there any chance we will have the half hourly service restored? Sometimes I resort back to using the car because sometimes one an hour isn't convenient for appointments in town. Thank you.

I live in Hurstpierpoint. The 273 runs every 2hrs except in the afternoon. No 273 bus from Brighton between 14.00 and 17.45. Makes going to lunch in Brighton by bus a nightmare.

Great service but way to expensive ,would use them so much more if the price was cut

Please encourage people to use the bus BUT the buses are too expensive and routes infrequent . Please subsidise routes to make them
affordable. For example, the 63 does not even run on Sunday and the fare is £4.00

Please don’t pay lip service to sustainable travel without the financial support.

I live in Sharpthorne West Sussex. Currently a very limited bus service ( Metrobus 84) is provided which runs on weekdays and Saturdays every 2 hours. The last bus to either East Grinstead or Crawley is before 6pm in the evening.
This situation does not encourage the use of public transport over the use of a private vehicles and for people with no access to their own transport makes it difficult to make journeys for either work or socialising. It also hinders the development of tourist opportunities in this village and also West Hoathly.

I am concerned that there is only one bus route serving the whole of the south of East Grinstead and the adjacent villages of Sharpthorne and West Hoathly. This is Metrobus 84, which only runs every 2 hours during the day and not at all on Sundays and Bank Holidays. There is a need for this service to be improved, as it is a vital link for those without their own transport. It is rarely busy, but that is the nature of the route, where people mostly hop on for a few stops. In particular an additional bus stop between Saint Hill and Blackland Farm would be an asset. The current distance between these two stops is 1.7 miles, and the roads are too dangerous for walking far. An additional stop near the junction with Legsheath Lane would provide access to several sites of interest, notably Stone Farm Rocks, Weir Wood reservoir and a popular bird hide. I believe changes such as this would increase the usage of the service and benefit both the users and the bus company.

i use the 700 from southbourne west sussex. 80%+ of the time, the buses are late. Not your fault but due to the railway crossing in chichester and the A27 bypass. The buses from chichester to bognor are a 10 minute service. chichester to portsmouth is a 30minute service. Why can't the Chichester to portsmouth service start from chichester.

I think the 700 service between Brighton and littlehampton is excellent living not far from the route like all these things some services are very infrequent. Not the 700 though. Last week I walked from broad water into worthing town centre as the bus stops either didn’t show the bus times or someone had put stickers over the times.
Whilst some of the drivers are not very commutative I have never found them to be rude in any way.

Better use of buse would be achieved if the 700 was put back to limited stop and ran Portsmouth to Brighton instead of the disjointed service it is now there are too many stops on this route now
The local buses around Chichester could be better if they didn't all share the same routes and times
The 55 should be more frequent and the 56 should run its full route ( currently stops 4 stops short and the bus stops are there unused with no warning on them)

No 17 bus Brighton to Horsham (Stagecoach) via Mannings Heath. The service would be used much more if they could go back to 2 buses an hour instead of the current 1 bus per hour which was brought back in during the pandemic. Its very off putting having to wait an hour for a bus if you just miss one. I need to go regularly (as do other people) from Mannings Heath to Horsham for shopping. I often take my car these days just to avoid having this long wait which is a pity as it's more polution on the roads.

When I moved near North Heath Lane about 8 years ago there were buses every 15 minutes into Horsham and back again. Now the 61 and 51 services run less frequently and those that do run are timed to arrive at almost the same time as the 200 half hourly service. As the 51 and 61 are local services surely they could be timed to run 15 minutes between the 200 service. The 200 used to leave the bus station on the hour and half hour but now it sometimes leaves before or after.. Why is this?

I live in Collingwood Road, Horsham we are on the 51 bus route. We only have three bus’s a day. It means if we have an appointment in town late morning we can’t get back home. I had a dentist appointment at the dentist last Friday week at 1.30 when I was walking home I fell over and now have a broken wrist.I am 77 years old this wouldn’t have happened if I could have caught a bus. Please could you reconsider and put some more bus’s on our route

The bus service in Horsham is pretty poor.

The 65 is only hourly (so not frequent enough) during the daytime from Mon-Sat so you cannot go out in the evenings or on Sunday.

You cannot easily get from West to East Horsham, so the Warnham Nature reserve is off limits which is a huge shame.

Broadbridge Heath and the large Tesco are pretty much off limits due to the poor bus service and having to change from a very infrequent bus service to another infrequent bus service.

It's a pain having lots of different bus companies as you then need to by lots of different tickets instead of a single day ticket if you want to go somewhere that isn't Crawley or Horsham town centre.

I haven't even tried to get to the nearby villages as it costs too much due to having to pay for lots of different bus companies and the infrequency of the buses means that it would just take too long to do and I wouldn't be able to spend any time there before having to come back for the school run.

Thank you so much for looking into this.
There is really bad timing in regards to Bus services in Henfield. First no direct bus service to hospital to Worthing or Southlands Hospital that serve our area and sometimes only every hour. No Sunday services you have to pay these extra. People who work at 7am in the mornings are limited to 2 buses in the morning. It's really tough for working families 👪.

The buses from Henfield pre Covid could get you into Brighton for a 9am start at work. Now the service is so reduced that getting to work at a sensible time is impossible so we have no choice but to drive.

Unfortunately the 422 in the morning is unreliable as a mode of school transport it arrives in Copthorne late on most days and although the timetable says it arrives at the perfect time of 8.31am by Reigate School it is never on time according to the timetable

I'm sure many of us in Thakeham would use a bus if we had one. The only usable service is on a Thursday to Horsham. The rest of the week we have to use cars as there is no safe footpath or cycleway out of the evergrowing village

My husband and I live in Durrants Village, Faygate. Please include the village in your 23 and 200 routes. We are stranded here at the moment.

A later bus service on Saturday on route 272 through Ardingly. Buses stop too early when you want to go out of Village in the evening and get home, have to rely on taxis. Service the same as mid week would be beneficial.

Ardingly is cut off by lack of buses. It’s a large expanding village. A bus every two hours is hopeless. I would definitely use a bus instead of a car if I could!! Negligent#WestSussBus