Fastrack quietly expands

Tuesday 19th August 2025

Kent’s Thameside Fastrack quietly expanded at the weekend with the opening of a new section of bus only road extending westwards from the new Whitecliife development by Castle Hill to the Bluewater Retail Park.

It’s definitely a case of getting buses installed before residents move in.

Other than a few houses already occupied in Longhoughton Road at the western end of the newly extended route…

… the area through which the new bus lane passes is currently dominated by ‘heavy plant crossing’…

… protected by temporary traffic lights and not a lot else.

Just huge machines crossing the bus lane in a couple of places.

The area is so new to buses Ordnance Survey would have you believe the bus currently passes through a lake in the former quarry.

But part of this newly extended route is only a temporary arrangement. Updated plans were approved by Kent County Council in March for the busway to use an old tunnel under the B255 (the orange north/south road on the above map) which will make for a more direct route and avoid buses having to head north to the roundabout and then come back south again, as can be seen in the above map.

I wrote about this ambitious 80 metre tunnel originally costing £13 million (and backed by the Ebbsfleet Garden City Development Corporation) in November 2020. It was granted planning permission in June 2020 but this expired in June 2023 without any work taking place.

The disused tunnel originally linked two quarries and obviously needs a considerable amount of work to make it suitable for buses, cycles and pedestrians, now estimated to have doubled in cost to £25.5 million. It comprises a 3.5 metre wide single Fastrack busway (controlled by lights) and a shared use footway and cycleway. I understand construction work is due to begin early next year with completion by 2027 with additional funding coming from Kent’s Bus Service Improvement Plan.

Go-Coach began route C2 from Gravesend to the new Whitecliffe, Castle Hill residential area initially on a four month contract in July 2024, with Go-Ahead taking it over in November, when it was also re-lettered to E. Here’s the Go-Coach bus at the temporary terminus in the route’s first week at what was then the western end of the bus only road through Castle Hill…

… and fast forward to this week and the photograph below captures the point where route E now continues westwards at the same point on the extended bus only road you can see behind the bus heading to Gravesend.

Route E’s timetable continues to run half hourly to Bluewater, as it did before, with the first bus leaving there at 05:12 and the timetable continuing until 00:38 at Gravesend, the eastern end of the route.

Go-Ahead are now using three buses on the service, which provides for generous layover times, especially at Gravesend. End to end journey time is 26/27 minutes so each bus has 37 minutes stand time in the 90 minute cycle.

It’s a shame the new ie-Tram buses aren’t yet available for route E (nor routes B and F – they continue to only be deployed on route A) as this would have seen the newly extended route with new buses to suit.

It’s great to see there’s a new timetable booklet available from a number of outlets and I understand is also being distributed among the communities in the area. I didn’t see one to pick up on the bus when I had a ride yesterday morning, but I’m sure they’re out there. A copy is also available online here.

Another change introduced at the weekend was new night route N which has replaced the overnight journeys previously on route A. Route N runs hourly through the night from Amazon to Dartford via Temple Hill then via route B to Bluewater and Gravesend which also gives Darent Valley Hospital an overnight bus service for the first time.

These two newly extended routes began on Saturday so it’s very early days for the residents of Castle Hill to get used to their expanded route E offering a much welcome travel opportunity to Bluewater as an alternative to Gravesend.

When I travelled up and down yesterday morning, one trip had just me on board and another took a couple of passengers over to Bluewater, but I’m sure it will soon catch on and become a successful addition to this expanding bus network serving this expanding residential area.

Indeed, I suspect in another 60 years someone will write a book about Buses for New Garden Cities charting the development of routes A, B, E, F, N and AZ, and by then, no doubt many other letters of the alphabet.

Roger French

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