Every route 99. 6 of 25.

Tuesday 7th April 2026

At one point it was touch and go whether this route 99 would still be running when I got round to travelling on it for this fortnightly series looking at all Britain’s 25 bus routes using that number. Reports online indicated the route was up for review after March following a reduction in Government funding for the West of England Combined Authority (WECA).

However, the route is saved for the next four months until the end of July 2026 to allow WECA to “carry out community consultations about and audits” of passengers using the route. However in any event I took the precaution of taking a ride a few weeks ago just to be sure I wouldn’t miss out. After all, who would want to miss the chance of riding what I think will almost certainly be Britain’s least used bus route numbered 99 to say nothing of the glorious countryside it runs through and with journeys as late as almost midnight on a Saturday.

Spoiler alert I was the only passenger, except for two others who travelled for part of the way due to their bus being cancelled, of which more anon.

As you can see from above, this route 99 is operated by The Big Lemon company and was set up by the Chew Valley CIC Sustainable Transport Partnership in September 2024 adding to another route (X91) which began earlier that year. Both routes brought buses back to the lovely Chew Valley south west of Bristol which had seen cuts and service withdrawals in 2023.

The 99 is known affectionately as the Chew Valley Cat and runs to a frying pan kind of shape linking a number of villages and hamlets in the Valley five and a bit times a day, seven days a week with links to medical facilities as well as to bus services on the main A37 and B3355 roads to Bristol and Bath, while the X91 gives the area four journeys into Bristol and back and is known as the Chew Valley Sprint.

Interestingly at a WECA meeting discussing the situation, and its three-year bus funding reduction from £57.5 million to £42.4, million Councillor David Harding (from Bath and North Somerset Council) “warned the removal of the buses would leave the area ‘at the mercy’ of WESTLINK DRT buses” I can imagine how he felt at that thought.

When the route began it was marketed as WESTlocal being “a new type of bus service – designed by local people to meet the needs of their community. They’re being created all over the region thanks to funding from West of England Mayoral Combined Authority.”

The launch promotional leaflet reproduced above confirms the initial timetable and coverage was very ambitious with four daytime figure of eight journeys from 07:32 to 17:20 as well as three evening journeys from 21:31 through until 01:03 late on a Friday and Saturday evening. Quite something for a very rural bus route and all the more so as another evening journey at 18:30 was added in April 2025.

However in August last year both the route and timetable for the 99 were amended to “refocus on villages with the highest numbers”. Basically the bottom half of the figure of eight was withdrawn save for a short double run to East Harptree.

The number of journeys was amended to five and a half rounders with the late evening service reduced to just Saturdays and cut back to end at 23:46.

I caught the 11:43 journey at Pensford Bridge one recent Saturday morning. It’s a handy place to connect with frequent First Bus routes that pass by along the A37 and will take you to and from Wells, Glastonbury, Bridgwater, Yeovil or Bath and Bristol. There aren’t many facilities in Pensford so it’s just as well First’s buses are fairly frequent (four an hour to and from Bristol, half hourly to Bath and hourly to the other destinations) to enable connections with the less frequent route 99.

A helpful timetable display could be found in the bus shelter in the centre of the village together with an electronic departure sign.

To while away some of the time I had to wait I walked to the preceding bus stop on the southern edge of the village and found another bus shelter…

… displaying a more home made departure listing for the 99 from last August as well as some up coming events in September.

At exactly 11:43 the bus appeared and on boarding I was immediately struck by the bus radio playing out Heart FM particularly as neither my age nor the driver’s seemed typical of the target listener to that radio station. I’m more of a Boom Radio listener these days.

Off we set and it didn’t take long to soon appreciate the charm of the villages we travelled through – Stanton Drew, Chew Magna and Chew Stoke…

… as well as the beauty of the scenery we were passing through.

Some of the roads were quite narrow but the driver was unfazed by the challenges that were thrown his way…

… and I noticed bus shelters and bus stop plates were in situ presumably they were still there from prior to the 2023 bus cuts.

It wasn’t long before we reached the large Chew Valley Lake which is a big draw locally and attracts many visitors and tourists…

… and that’s when to both the driver and my surprise we saw two passengers waiting at a bus stop.

But, it turned out they wanted to get to Bristol and were waiting for the X91 which wasn’t due for another hour and would also pass by on the other side of the road. Unfortunately the driver didn’t seem able to pass on these two helpful pieces of information but as we set off I hoped they’d realise.

We’re now on the same route as used by the X91 towards Bishop Sutton, East Harptree, West Harptree and the terminus for both routes at Ubley and I noticed the Ubley bound X91 runs only eight minutes behind us which seems a shame to have two buses running together through the same villages in such a remote part of the country.

And that’s when things got interesting as when we reached East Harptree, where the bus turns round at a crossroads in the middle of the village, and paused for a few minutes, as we set off, the driver noticed the Ubley bound X91 about to come up the hill towards the junction, but instead of coming up, as the driver waited for him to do, he moved closer to the kerb next to some scaffolding, thinking we could pass by.

My driver rightly assessed there wasn’t enough room to pass by and got out of the bus to beckon the driver to come on up.

After some minutes of frantically beckoning, the X91 bus finally appeared…

… and turned around in front of where we’d parked.

And it was then we noticed the rear nearside window had been smashed having had an argument with the scaffolding as its driver had pulled away.

After that we set off blind for Ubley with the X91 (also bound for Ubley) ahead of us until that driver pulled into a layby to inspect the damage he’d caused and that was the last we saw of him.

He was due into Ubley at 12:42 and to leave for Bristol at 12:52 whereas we arrived about that time and would stay until departing at 13:05.

The driver parked up for the layover time in what is a lovely spot…,

… and at 13:05 we headed off again for another circuit but when we arrived in Bishops Sutton there were two familiar faces waiting at the bus stop.

It was the same couple we’d seen waiting for the X91 by Chew Valley Lake. They’d walked down to Bishops Sutton and were now perplexed the Bristol bound bus hadn’t arrived. My driver told them the bus was unavailable for service and suggested they board this bus and change to a First Bus in Pensford. It was lucky they’d made it to Bishops Sutton as we wouldn’t have passed by the bus stop where they were originally waiting on this leg of the journey.

But after they boarded, the driver got out of the cab and started getting his things together, including putting a high-viz on and it wasn’t long before I twigged there was a driver changeover happening.

And sure enough a car soon appeared and there was quite a protracted handover – which took 12 minutes in all, the longest driver changeover I’ve experienced.

Luckily the timetable is rather slack in places but we arrived back in Penfold 10 minutes later, where I and the Bristol bound couple alighted, with the bus only nine minutes down and I was pretty sure much of that would be made up by the time it reached Bishop Sutton again.

As my original driver left the bus at Bishop Sutton he told me I was the only passenger he’d seen that morning and he bet there’d be no more for the rest of the day, aside from the Bristol bound couple, even through until the last journey at 23:46 that evening.

Against that background it will be interesting to see what WECA’s “audit” throws up in terms of passenger numbers. I see that Compton Martin Parish Council are suggesting the next three months “will be an intense period where the numbers on board will be closely scrutinised and every single journey is important between now and July.”

Roger French

Did you catch the previous blog in this series? 1 of 25 Eastbourne-Hastings, 2 of 25 Petworth-Chichester, 3 of 25 Woolwich-Bexleyheath, 4 of 25 Tilbury Town-Tilbury Ferry Terminal, 5 of 25 Chippenham-Swindon.

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