free Easter travel
1 month ago
Some great news for all our customers in West Berkshire, your bus travel will be free throughout the Easter weekend!
We have been talking to West Berkshire Council and they have agreed to fund free bus travel from Good Friday to Easter Monday to help celebrate Newbury EasterFest. This is to help promote local businesses and encourage more sustainable transport. By helping more people to access buses and encourage people out of their cars, we can reduce the amount of congestion on our roads and improve the air quality - two things that benefit everyone! And remember, a double deck bus at full capacity can take over 2km of cars off the road!
extra services in the Newbury area Good Friday and Easter Monday
As part of this great initiative, Newbury & District will be running extra buses on the following routes for Good Friday and Easter Monday (there will be no extra buses on Easter Sunday). On these days, they will run to their Saturday timetables.
- route 1a/1c - Newbury & Thatcham
- route 2 - Pigeons Farm > Greenham > Wash Common > Newbury Wharf
- route 8 - Greenham (Tesco) > Pigeons Farm > The Nightingales > Racecourse Road > Newbury Wharf
- route 9 - Newbury Racecourse > Newbury Wharf
how does it work?
It's really simple to get your free travel - just get on a bus! You won't be issued a ticket, you can just get on (saying hello to the driver of course) and find your seat. The driver will manually record everyone getting on the bus.
The free travel is only valid when boarding in West Berkshire - so if your travel is entirely within the borough (e.g. Thatcham Broadway to Newbury and back), then your whole journey will be free.
If you travel outside of the boundary, e.g. From Calcot Sainsbury's to Reading town centre, then only the trip from West Berkshire will be free - so in this example, you would travel free into Reading, but would have to pay a single fare from Reading town centre back to Calcot.
concessionary passes and existing pass holders
During these free travel days, we still need concessionary pass holders to scan their passes as normal. If you already have a ticket (for example a 30 day pass) you should also still scan your pass. Whilst this might sound strange, it is necessary because the council need to match the correct type of journeys to see how successful the day is compared to a normal Saturday!
valid services
Whilst most people will know which services run in West Berkshire, we thought it best to clarify properly and avoid any doubt.
All Newbury & District services operate entirely within the West Berkshire boundary.:
| route number | destination | days of operation |
|---|---|---|
| 1a/1c | Newbury to Thatcham | Will not run on Easter Sunday |
| 2 | Newbury to Wash Common | Will not run on Easter Sunday |
| 3 | Newbury to Hungerford | Only runs Easter Saturday |
| 4 | Newbury to Lambourn | Only runs Easter Saturday |
| 6/6a | Newbury to West Ilsley | Only runs Easter Saturday |
| 8 | Newbury to Tesco, Greenham and Pigeon's Farm | Will not run on Easter Sunday |
| 9 | Newbury to Racecourse | Will not run on Easter Sunday |
Reading Buses (and other operators) valid routes for free travel if boarding in West Berkshire, whatever your destination. However, remember that if you board outside West Berkshire you would need to buy a ticket as normal:
| route number | operator | destination | West Berkshire boundary stops |
|---|---|---|---|
| jet black 1 | Reading Buses | Newbury to Reading | Greenwood Road |
| lime 2/2a | Reading Buses | Mortimer to Reading | The Cunning Man |
| sky blue 15 | Reading Buses | Calcot to Reading | Yew Tree Rise |
| sky blue 16 | Reading Buses | Purley to Reading | Tring Road Shops |
| yellow 26 | Reading Buses | Calcot to Reading | Swanholm Gardens |
| royal blue 33 | Reading Buses | Turnham's Farm to Reading | Warborough Avenue |
Things to do
Take advantage of your free travel by visiting some of the events in Newbury: