A new bus service will link Southend Travel Centre to the airport through the east of the city, paid for from a £10.4m grant. No start date has been published.

Southend is to get a new bus service running from the Travel Centre to London Southend Airport through the east of the city.

The plan is set out in papers for the Southend on Sea Local Bus Forum, which met on 7 September (agenda item 6, bus route developments). It will run as two numbers:

  • 62A, London Southend Airport to the Travel Centre
  • 62B, London Southend Airport to the Travel Centre via Temple Farm Industrial Estate, at peak hours only

The paper says the service “will support residents within St. Laurence, Prittlewell, St. Luke’s, Southchurch, Victoria, Kursall, Milton Wards and enable new connections across the city”. It is meant to fill a gap in public transport to jobs at the airport and at Temple Farm, and to serve the planned development at Fossetts Farm.

What the papers do not give is a start date. They say only that the service will run “this year”. No timetable, fares or operator are named, and the council has not published a press release about it. Service 62, the existing Heygate Avenue circular the new numbers build on, is run by Stephensons of Essex and started on 28 October 2024.

The closest comparison is the city’s other airport link. The 23A and 23B, which run from Leigh-on-Sea station to the airport and the Airport Business Park, started on 31 August 2025 with Stephensons on an initial two-year contract with an option of a third year, paid for from the same government grant (council announcement, 28 July 2025). The 62A and 62B would do for the east of the city roughly what the 23A did for the west.

£10.4m, and the year the revenue runs out

The council has been awarded £10,433,543 in Bus Service Improvement Plan grant for April 2026 to March 2030 (agenda item 5, DfT BSIP grant funding). It splits into £7,512,572 of capital and £2,920,971 of revenue.

That split matters more than the headline. Capital pays for shelters, stops and accessibility work. Revenue is what pays an operator to run a service that does not wash its face commercially. The revenue is £973,657 a year for three years, and then nothing at all in 2029/30.

Stacked bar chart of Southend's Department for Transport bus grant from 2026/27 to 2029/30, showing revenue funding of £973,657 a year for three years and none in 2029/30
The grant that keeps Southend's supported bus routes running, and the year it stops. Source: Southend on Sea Local Bus Forum, 7 September 2026.
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The routes the grant is already holding up

The same paper lists the services the council is paying to maintain. None of these are new, and that is the point: without the grant they would be at risk.

  • Route 9, Shoeburyness to Rayleigh. Saturday service levels funded.
  • Routes 17 and 17A, Southend to Westcliff, Leigh and Highlands Boulevard. The Highlands Boulevard extension and evening journeys are funded, as we reported when that money was extended.
  • Route 21, Southend to Leigh and Canvey. Funded within Southend for an hourly service Monday to Saturday, and hourly on Sunday between Leigh and Southend.
  • Route 24, Southchurch to the Travel Centre. Extra evening journeys funded.
  • Route 26, Shoebury East Beach to the Travel Centre, now joined with the former 3A.
  • Route 29, Garons to Belfairs. Monday to Saturday evening journeys funded.
  • Route 62, the Heygate Avenue circular.

A new duty to protect “socially necessary” routes

The Bus Services Act 2025 has changed the rules on withdrawing a service. Local transport authorities must now identify and protect “socially necessary local services”, meaning routes people rely on to reach work, education, shops and social contact.

Where such a route is at risk, the paper says operators must give notice of up to 12 months, and the operator and the council must look at alternatives before a cancellation or a significant worsening goes ahead. The duty applied from 1 April 2026 and full compliance is required by 31 March 2027. It does not come with any money, and the paper says so: “the policy improves transparency but does not mandate funding”.

What it means for you

If you work at the airport or Temple Farm, watch for a registration, not a press release. Nothing about the 62A or 62B is bookable yet. The paper commits to the route this financial year, which runs to 31 March 2027, and the detail will land as a timetable.

If you use a funded route, the date to keep is March 2029. Routes 9, 17, 17A, 21, 24, 26, 29 and 62 all depend on revenue grant that currently ends then. The new “socially necessary” duty means you should get warning rather than a sudden withdrawal.

If a service near you is being cut or moved, say so in writing to the Bus Forum. Questions submitted in advance by the public are answered by the operators at the meeting and published as an annex to the minutes. The last round covered reliability in Shoeburyness, overcrowding at school times, buses vanishing from real-time displays, and hospital access (minutes, 12 March 2026). Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust asked to be involved earlier when changes affect journeys to Southend Hospital, and the forum agreed officers and operators should improve that.

If you are driving instead, check what is closed first. Our Southend roadworks and travel page tracks the current closures, and parking in Southend covers the zones and charges.

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