The battle for Chells

Tuesday 9th June 2026 As well as in Southend-on-Sea (and also Preston – which I’ve yet to visit) it all kicked off in Stevenage last week where Stagecoach is flexing its muscles against Arriva. It doesn’t seem that long ago (February 2024), Stagecoach extended its Bedford to Hitchin routes 9A and 9B onwards to Stevenage bringing its buses into the 1960s New Town for the first time by competing against Arriva’s routes 100/101 which link Luton and Hitchin with Stevenage with connections between the latter two towns going right back to London Transport Country Bus days. Now in this latest skirmish, from the beginning of the month, Stagecoach has struck out again and this time introduced a local bus route in Stevenage itself. New route SB12 links the Chells residential area with Stevenage town centre every half an hour in the peaks and hourly off-peak… … in direct competition with Arriva’s busy and well used route SB1 which serves the same stops as well as continuing on to serve Chells…