Canvey competition commences

Tuesday 2nd June 2026

Another bus battle began yesterday. This time it’s in Essex where First Bus introduced a raft of changes including slimming down direct bus links between Canvey Island and Southend-on-Sea leading Arriva to introduce a brand new limited stop route, numbered 1X, to fill the void.

Until last weekend, First Bus’s hourly route 21 and its 20-minutely route 27 covered most of the Island’s residential roads before continuing over to Southend either via the Hospital (21) or the main London Road (27) with the 21 continuing a bit further east towards the Thorpe Bay area. But in what appears to be a rather strange move, from Sunday, First’s route 27 from Canvey Island was diverted at Hadleigh (not far from Canvey island) with buses on the 20 minute service now heading north to Rayleigh and Hullbridge instead of Southend. The section of route to Hullbridge replaces part of route 20 which used to link that area with Southend every 20 minutes and has now been withdrawn (other than for limited evening tendered journeys).

This leaves Canvey Island with just the hourly 21 as the link to Southend with this route also being altered to run via Leigh-on-Sea and Chalkwell taking slightly longer than previously. The changes also leave Hullbridge without a daytime link to Southend.

First Bus has uploaded an up-to-date network map to its website showing the amended routes…

… but an extract from the OS map shows more easily why the changes haven’t gone down too well with some residents of Canvey Island as well as Hullbride to the north of the area previously served by the 20-minutely route 20 into Rayleigh and Southend, and now only served by the diverted 20-minutely route 27 to Raleigh, Hadleigh and Canvey Island. Meanwhile residents of Canvey Island who used to have the 20-minutely 27 to take them to Southend now only have the hourly 21.

Presumably observing these planned changes and having experienced some previous nibbling away at its local network east of Southend (as well as in Colchester) by First, a more emboldened and assertive Arriva (now released from the shackles of DB ownership), and with a UK Bus managing director who knows what he’s doing, has launched a new half hourly route 1X to compensate for the loss of the 27 and give Canvey Islanders a better and quicker service into Southend.

It operates from around 06:00 to 21:00 on Mondays to Saturdays and requires five buses. There’s a school day variation of a morning and afternoon journey numbered 1S serving the USP College in Benfleet.

I paid a visit to the area yesterday to take a look at this latest bus battleground with 2026 style bus competition.

The 1X begins its journey at Leigh Beck at the eastern end of Canvey Island (also served by First’s 27) but I picked the bus up at Benfleet station at the western end of the Island.

And it was good to see a bespoke liveried bus promoting the new route arrive at the bus stop…

…with an onboard supply of printed double sided A4 sheets with timetable and route map.

The bus itself along with (I understand) four other five year old Wright Streetdeck Ultroliner buses have been acquired for the new route from Ensignbus where they’d been used on local routes in Grays but in this new life are now competing against Ensignbus’s sister First Bus owned company in Essex. A very local affair then.

The livery highlights the quick journey time…

… as well as the main points served on the route and will no doubt help to raise its profile.

I couldn’t help thinking how this presents quite a contrast with First’s approach of a bland national corporate brand, no local identity and no printed information, not least when the potential for confused passengers with significant changes to routes having been introduced.

I overheard quite a few passengers at Southend’s bus station wondering where route 27 had gone, for example.

To its credit Southend City Council had updated bus station displays showing both the First Bus changed route numbers as well as Arriva’s new 1X.

The 1X was also promoted with bespoke posters in various places around the bus station and along the route too.

As well as the 1X taking a quicker more direct route between Benfleet and Hadleigh (along Essex Way and Benfleet Road) – where some of the houses are impressively large mansion style premises…

… it runs limited stop along London Road through Leigh, between Hadleigh and Chalkwell, and also uses Chalkwell Avenue and the seafront Western Esplanade between Chalkwell and Southend Pier thereby giving a new frequent 30 minute link between Hadleigh and the beach as well as providing a perceptively quicker route into the town centre.

In addition, my late morning journey from Benfleet station into Southend showed the route to have a few minutes spare time in the schedule as it wasn’t a hurried affair by any means with around six to eight passengers trying it out as well as some changing their minds when hearing the route involved the seafront rather than London Road through Westcliff which Arriva also serves with its city route 1 and First Bus has regular routes too.

We arrived on time at 11:53 into Southend’s bus station, including a rather convoluted route at the eastern end, 47 minutes after leaving Benfleet station whereas a similar journey on First’s route 21 would have taken 65 minutes making for quite a stark comparison.

An impressive eight passengers boarded the next departure from the bus station back to Canvey Island at 12:00 and when the next 1X arrived at 12:23, again it was encouraging to see 10 passengers alight.

For a first day of a brand new service, that’s not bad. It was also a free day too with no fares being charged as an introductory offer although not many, if any, passengers realised this until they stepped aboard.

I caught the next departure back to Canvey Island at 12:35 – the half hourly frequency is not consistent in the afternoon – with another eight on board – including one who alighted at the Pier and two further did so along the seafront.

There was much chatter on board about the new route and more passengers joined as we headed over to Canvey.

Buses I saw in the other direction all had high single figure numbers of passengers on board, as did First’s buses along the route too.

I was intending to catch the 1X all the way through to Leigh Beck and then catch a 27 back again for a comparison but that plan had to be aborted when the journey came to an abrupt halt due to an accident closing the access road on to the Island at Benfleet station and all six of us on board alighted while the driver radioed for instructions.

We were then joined by the bus on route 21 which had left Southend bus station 15 minutes before us at 12:20 with a similar number alighting from that.

That interruption to service aside, if I was Arriva I’d be encouraged by this initial response on day one.

If I was First Bus I’d be wondering if I’d done the right thing in reducing the frequency of buses between Canvey Island and Southend so dramatically from four to one an hour.

And one final quirky observation: it was ironic to see the internal display screens on the buses I travelled on showing messages still promoting their previous owner, Ensignbus, including one featuring Tap&Cap also being available “on First Bus too”!!

Although the screen on the lower deck had been appropriately censored.

It was also interesting to spot an Arriva bus wearing Southend Corporation heritage livery…

… and another (on the 1X) marking the award of city status to Southend-on-Sea and being named after the late Sir David Amess MP.

It’s good to see these local connections.

Roger French

Revised blogging timetable: as it’s now June, the BusAndTrainUser enhanced blogging timetable returns for the 2026 summer season from this weekend: 06:00 TThSSu.