Tuesday 19th May 2026
Yet another new bus route took to the road last week, and this time it’s on my home turf being in Mid Sussex’s ever expanding town of Burgess Hill. New route 38 is operated by Compass Travel serving part of the major new development of Brookleigh to the north of the town.
What makes this bus route unusual is its combination of having a fixed timetable and route during the morning and afternoon peak periods but during the rest of the day, as well as all day on Sundays, it runs to a flexible arrangement in response to demand.
The Brookleigh development was formerly known as the Northern Arc (mainly because it’s shape is an arc to the north of the town – as shown on the map below) and includes plans for 3,500 new homes as well as three new schools, sports and recreational facilities, neighbourhood and community centres and medical facilities.
This major scheme is being delivered by Homes England which has aquired the land and making it available to developer partners as they join the project. It’s Homes England that has funded route 38 and contracted Compass Travel to operate it with a Mercedes Sprinter 16 seater branded especially for the service.
The route started last Monday and during the week I saw the bus laying over by Burgess Hill railway station and asked the driver how it was going. This was around 18:50 on Thursday and he admitted it had been very quiet with only five passengers travelling that day. Interestingly looking in the bus shelter I found no reference to the route in the rather shabby large timetable case so perhaps people are unaware of it.
Still, it’s early days and the problem, as always with these things, is residents who have already moved in to new homes that have been completed will have established their travel arrangements prior to the new bus route starting while those yet to move in, as more new homes are built obviously aren’t yet passengers, so it’s not surprising the bus carries very few people in its early days. At least it’s now up and running.
Adding to the dilemma in this case is the route’s flexible arrangement during the five hours between 10:12 and 15:00 on Mondays to Saturdays and all day Sundays (06:50 to 19:12) when, without custom, the bus sits in Burgess Hill town centre not being seen by any potential passengers living in the new development. You save the cost of the mileage of all those wasted trips carrying fresh air but you don’t raise awareness the bus exists in a way you would if it trundled around the development every half hour.
As you can see, on Mondays to Saturdays, aside from a school journey to The Triangle, the bus shuttles up and down from the development at Holmes Avenue in Brookleigh to the railway station every half hour from 06:50 to 10:12 and from 15:15 to 19:12.
Acually, the scheduled route is a one-way clockwise circuit heading towards Brookleigh from the town centre via the London Road, B2036/A273, then threading its way through the new development (not yet marked on the OS map below) before almost reaching Wivelsfield railway station and then returning into town through Mill Road.
I took a ride on the last scheduled round trip of the morning at 09:55 from the railway station on Saturday and also used the app to book a ride later in the morning from the station to Brookleigh as well as a follow on ride from there to the large Tesco on the south west side of the town.
The app is from a tech company called Spare, “our solutions empower transit agencies to overcome complex challenges and deliver transformative results for riders”, but despite that, it was fairly easy to work out how to book a journey but I’m very surprised there’s no facility for potential passengers to book by phone with using the app seemingly the only way to travel off-peak. I think this will impact take up of the new service. Although the Brookleigh website shows a map (see below) seemingly suggesting the flexible booking area covers the whole town, I’m assuming one end of the journey must be within the new development as the app wouldn’t let me book a journey back from Tesco to the town centre when I tried.
As always with these “flex” arrangements, it was easy for me to book a couple of journeys exactly when I wanted to travel (“demand responsive” at its best) as no one else knows about it yet, but as soon as they do in any meaningful numbers there’ll be a fight on to “demand” the bus when I want it rather than my neighbour and it simply doesn’t work, as I’ve been explaining ad nauseam in these blogs.
On the 09:55 journey we actually picked up two passengers on the circuit, albeit they boarded as we headed north on the B2036 London Road (in a long established part of the town) and travelled around the route and back into town, so not from the new development, and I think they were just trying the service out.
I asked the driver if he’d received my bookings for the two later journeys but he explained he was only the relief driver to give the main driver a break while he did three rounders (this being the third). He’d driven over from Compass Travel’s base in Worthing (by car) and after the three rounders was driving (by car again) over to Steyning to do the rest of his duty on route 100.
As we toured around Brookleigh it was interesting to see the scale of development and the number of homes already occupied.
I noticed three bus stops and shelters have been installed, oddly in pairs on both sides of the road whereas the bus only goes one way, with one pair containing a timetable…
… and another minus both timetable and bus stop pole, so may not yet be in use, although there were people living close by…
… while the third was surrounded by barriers with no development yet near it.
Not surprisingly there were quite a number of cars and other vehicles and I noticed there were many parking spaces for residents.
The Brookleigh website explains…
Having done a circuit of the new development and knowing the drivers would be changing over back in Burgess Hill I decided to cancel my “flexible” journey bookings as I’d seen enough and didn’t want to waste the fuel by doing an unnecessary trip so after arriving back into the town centre at 10:12 I left the bus and the drivers to change over and presumably the new driver having enjoyed her break would just sit there until someone did book a journey, or it was time to do the next scheduled journey in almost six hours time at 15:55.
It’s certainly an interesting addition to the Burgess Hill bus scene. Thanks to Homes England.
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS
BusAndTrainUser 
The Wandering Busman talking. How Burgess, Keymer,Hassocks and Hawards Heath has grown in the 43 years I’ve known Mid-Sussex. I hope the new service is a success. Compass seems to be growing as company as well.
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How utterly soul less Brookleigh looks. Bus shelters without a bus stop totem, “glass and steel” housing with presumably NO vacant retail units as part of the estate. So depressing, the way every residential development gets more and more dependent on the car.
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Sort of Similar – travelled (in error) on the 315 london bus service Tooting Bec – Springfield Hospital (Now Springfield Village ) yesterday. Route lurches a bit up Trinity Road then off along a Tooting side street (cars parked both sides and little place to stop – with one person alighting , so the route that was does have some use rather than replicating the G1 along Nightingale Lane), then a fair bit of covering of the outer bit of the villiage development with no hail and ride or bus stops apparent apart from the final one , which finishes at part of the medical centre (so useful for staff) and largish care home- so useful for staff and visitor. The site does have a couple of shops and I think a community centre with more housebuilding going on being marketed at the present time (as London Square ?)
JBC Prestatyn
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With Planning Policies supposedly covering 15 min cities and active travel one would expect a lot more cycling provision – which would eat into this kind of local service by design. Leaving that aside one has to repeat Roger’s noting of a lack of clear roadside publicity , and the days of local papers I assume are effectively long gone to do things like wrap around adverts for bus launches and the like. Indeed should bus routes be launched in the same way as new station openings with goody bags and Vloggers commenting and filming for YT ?
That said I find the public timetable as printed confusing to read. Community Area names in front of some road names might be useful (It would help to bring Brookfield for example as a community place) and I would put the 38 SDO as a separate 38S Service and place a full 38 daily service in the time slot with at NSD if appropriate, arrival at Railway Station 0822. ( indeed just opening up the “middle” of the printed timetable for timing points of The Saffrons and Sussex Way ) and running every day at that time with a fixed 1500 departure from The Railway Station could be better (do people live at The Saffrons ?)
This might undermine the flexness of things – indeed somehow the bus MUST be at The Triangle for 1515 so that means the “1500” ceasing of DRT itself flexible as that has to be some kind of departure to a place the bus can hurry back from.
I thought the idea of Planning (permission) was to have some idea of where generated travel patterns might occur. In the good old days of building houses (and roads) the likes of Wimpey would use rather old double deck buses as staff transport though these days most specialist trades arrive on site by car or van.
I also note to the SW there is an industrial area – I assume Brookfield residents might do something like , work there ?
Is there logic in running Clockwise round the present loop – is Wivelsfield station the better one for morning commutes (more services ?) Indeed Burgess Hill seems to suffer with the main spine road being some distance from the rail station (and the ring road serving industry even worse) .
I suppose the DRT segment Could be replaced as fixed (unless there are odd demands for Settlement to Church and Burial ground on an irregular basis) Hourly Service running counter clockwise to the south and Tescos ?
JBC Prestatyn
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Counter clockwise? I didn’t realise you were American, JBC.
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my gramma didnt like my aunty
JBC Prestatyn
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Great to see a forward thinking initiative with a flexible service to allow patronage to build and understand demand. Always difficult with new developments and much harder now with different work patterns. 3,500 new homes will take 15 years to build out I expect and would imagine there will be quite the bus strategy to cater for demand. This will only be the start. Although, while those bus shelters may look pretty, they don’t offer much protection from the elements unfortunately. Style over function?
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Generally if you know a bus will be around in a rough five min timeframe the shelters are sufficient. Big problems in London on the cyclesuperhighways , the shelters are were the stops were, now they are 20 to 30 metres away from the bus stop flag (some drivers observe the shelters but you cannot guarantee it. Indeed is there any penalty in law for a bus setting down or picking up other than at a bus stop ( was old met police act then (but never in law ? traffic commissioners )
JBC Prestatyn
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I wonder if incoming Residents are even informed of the existence of a bus service? Highly doubtful. The Driver taking over for the DRT stint would need a break too, and thus another Worthing rounder by car required, if not two, unless the third Driver works to the last journey without dying from boredom before? The one thing we can be sure of, is that when the development is finally completed, the Burgess Hill road system will have 7000 extra cars to cope with!
Whilst the DRT element is as pointless as ever, I suppose, if loadings really are so poor at present, at least precious fuel is being saved.
Terence Uden
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I like that the Brookleigh website illustrates it’s bus section with a picture of a 18m 3-door articulated bus – they must *REALLY* be expecting a heavy demand.
David Potts
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Good to see a positive initiative, although not sure what this blogger actually wants. If it’s too popular during the DRT period he says it won’t work, and if it’s not busy then he suggests it’s a failure. The team behind this can be applauded for doing something.
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