Canvey competition commences

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Another bus battle began yesterday. This time it’s in Essex where First Bus introduced a raft of changes including slimming down direct bus links between Canvey Island and Southend-on-Sea leading Arriva to introduce a brand new limited stop route, numbered 1X, to fill the void. Until last weekend, First Bus’s hourly route 21 and its 20-minutely route 27 covered most of the Island’s residential roads before continuing over to Southend either via the Hospital (21) or the main London Road (27) with the 21 continuing a bit further east towards the Thorpe Bay area. But in what appears to be a rather strange move, from Sunday, First’s route 27 from Canvey Island was diverted at Hadleigh (not far from Canvey island) with buses on the 20 minute service now heading north to Rayleigh and Hullbridge instead of Southend. The section of route to Hullbridge replaces part of route 20 which used to link that area with Southend every 20 minutes and has now been withdrawn (other…