Thursday 16th July 2026
06:15 Update: In somewhat coincidental timing I see it’s been announced the “pink 22” has been “saved!”.
Nevertheless … here’s the blog as it was written on the basis it hadn’t yet been saved, but as you’ll see I kind of thought it would be……
Readers have likely noticed many blogs so far this year have featured the welcome introduction of new bus routes and there’s more to come over the next few weeks as yet more new routes take to the roads this summer.
But for today I’ve taken a look at what has become something of an unusual development – the withdrawal of an urban bus route running roughly every half hour during peak periods and hourly off peak. It’s Reading Buses’ route 22 which connects Caversham Heights with the town centre and will run for the last time this Saturday leaving many residents without a bus service within a reasonably close walking distance of their homes.
As you’d expect there have been complaints and protests from those affected including a public meeting organised by the local MP and attended by councillors and 140 local people.
An online petition had reached over 2,500 signatures when I checked last night.
But as always with these things, the main criteria is not how many people sign a petition or attend a public meeting but whether enough people are using the service to justify its continuation as a commercial proposition for the bus company, or if not, whether there is sufficient public funding available and a commitment from the Council to keep the route going.
Generally in cases like this, the answer is usually no, hence why a route is withdrawn. I’ve never known a commercially viable bus route be withdrawn, or one where the local authority is willing to fund its continuation. That just doesn’t happen. A paucity of people actually travelling when a route disappears from the network is almost always the case, otherwise the route wouldn’t be the subject of a withdrawal.
However, in this case, I’m not so sure.
Reading Buses publicly announced the withdrawal six weeks ago…
… and Reading Council will have had even more notice giving it enough time to consider providing alternatives through a tender package, but it would seem nothing has been forthcoming.
Caversham has been a notoriously challenging area for bus provision over the years. Back in 2017 Martijn Gilbert, then Reading Buses CEO, wrestled with plans to make cuts in the face of fierce pubic opposition eventually backtracking on some of the changes leading to today’s situation of two circular routes (23 and 24) serving Caversham Park and Emmer Green and route 22 serving Caversham Heights on an anti-clockwise circuit.
The precarious nature of the latter route’s finances was not helped when Go-Ahead’s Thames Travel revamped its Reading-Wallingford-Oxford route X40, diverting it to parallel the southern end of route 22, with a 20 minute frequency compared to the latter’s off-peak hourly provision.
Being municipally owned means Reading Buses Council’s shareholders have a duty to make commercial decisions to ensure the business is sustainable while at the same time their colleagues in the Council have responsibilities to ensure bus service provision meets social objectives of connectivity and mobility for residents.
Those who argue for more municipal ownership of bus companies extol the virtues of the business model pursued by the likes of Reading, Nottingham and Lothian as a way of retaining the discipline of business led decisions within a commercial culture while at the same time meeting social objectives resulting in the Caversham’s of this world retaining a level of bus service which would probably not have applied in a purely commercially driven model due to its low or even negative margin.
So in this case it’s interesting to see a highly successful and much admired municipally owned bus company persuing a complete route withdrawal in an urban area with apparently no backstop of the Council inviting bids from operators through the tendering process for some service provision to continue.
Against that background I was intrigued to see how many passengers would be travelling during its last week of operation so rocked up at the town’s Friar Street terminal point on Tuesday morning to catch the 11:00 departure up to Caversham Heights.
Buses used on the ‘pink’ branded route inter-work with routes 25/25A to Sonning Common and Peppard Common and the bus arrived into Friar Street at 10:55 having come from Peppard Common.
After a short pause we left on time with eight on board picking up a further two at the first stop in Forbury Road near the station. It was then round the corner to the north side of the station for the next bus stop but there were no passengers there for us with a bus on route 23 just ahead. Three of our passengers alighted after only a short ride at the two stops either end of Caversham Bridge (they could have caught the 23) and another alighted at Caversham Library where the route diverts away from the 23 and where two boarded giving eight on board again.
That was it for boarders as we continued into Caversham Heights setting down two passengers at the next two stops (also served by Thames Travel’s X40) before continuing into the section of route exclusively served by the 22 where we dropped the remaining six passengers off around the anti-clockwise circuit, but also started to gain passengers for the inbound journey. There were four on board when I left the bus in Woodcote Way to explore the area served on foot.
The chatter on board among passengers who knew each other during the journey was all about the imminent route withdrawal and how far they’d have to walk to the bus next week. Suffice to say there were some rather unhappy passengers on board.
It’s certainly the case some parts of the route are within a reasonable walking distance of alternative bus stops used by the X40 on the main A4074 Upper Woodcote Road (to/from Wallingford) but there are many properties to the north east of the area which are over half a mile from the nearest alternative bus stop (including the four I saw board) which will not only be inconvenient but a real challenge for some residents, especially the elderly and those with accessibility issues.
Some of the properties in the far north eastern corner were well endowed with two cars in their driveways but others struck me as offering potential for bus usage.
After a wander around I caught an X40 back into the town centre…
… and came across the next departure (at 12:00) on route 22 from the town centre towards Caversham Heights at the stop in Forbury Road.
It arrived with seven on board, picking three more up so headed off with 10 – the same number as the previous journey (and following a route 23 again) leading me to believe this is fairly typical for the off-peak experience.
I can see why carrying six passengers per journey (those with no reasonable alternative bus provision) makes for an unviable proposition for Reading Buses, the company, but I’d have thought that number more than justifies Reading Council stepping in to fund some continued provision perhaps on a slimmed down basis, eg a reduced service in the peak periods, to save costs.
I’ve known many tendered bus routes elsewhere carrying far fewer passengers and note the Council’s Local Transport Delivery Plan includes £2.6 million over the next three years for the “provision of socially necessary bus services throughout the borough including Buzz 9, Buzz 18 and Kennet Island services, which are currently under contract until March 2027, alongside other service enhancements. In addition, the provision of fares initiatives, including the ongoing Park and Ride bus fare subsidy offer, and a contribution towards discretionary element of the concessionary travel scheme.”
I’d have no hesitation in forgoing the “Park and Ride bus fare subsidy” in favour of keeping some bus service provision for Caversham Heights – after all, why are motorists being subsidised in preference to ‘about to be’ isolated bus passengers?
06:15 Update: Here’s the “saved!” explanation from the Reading Buses website which makes you wonder why such a decision could not have been reached a couple of months ago to avoid all the anguish.
And interestingly I see the new timetable includes a slimmed down peak. Funny that.
Roger French
Summer blogging timetable: 06:00 TThSSu
BusAndTrainUser 
Update: there’s been a reprieve…
https://www.reading-buses.co.uk/pink-22-saved
Darryl in Dorset.
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Thanks Darryl – have updated the blog!
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Interesting that the new timetable is actually more frequent outside the peaks, increased to a less memorable 45-minute frequency. Sounds like they wanted to decouple it from interworking. Caversham as a whole looks to be pretty well served by buses, but the geography means that you need lots of services running in parallel or some very circuitous and long-winded routes to serve all of it properly.
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How hard done by do readers think I am?
Living at 12/KT12 3EZ I consider the bus stops at Hersham Station for Route 564, are effectively on my doorstep. Both have a shelter and a bench.
For trunk Route 461 I have a three-eighths of a mile walk each way (three quarters of a mile total each day). The westbound stop has a shelter with a bench but for eastbound services I need to sit on a telecommunications cabinet near the stop which has no shelter apart from tree branches.
As to Caversham: I have used my pass to visit the place but alas the JDW has been got rid of, but I did “do” the Peppard Common terminus before retreating to my Surrey home.
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Over the years RBC has run the 22 bus service into the ground, and then further reduced it because they say it has few passengers.
Once upon a time it ran from N of the river to the university. They cut it to run just into town from Caversham Heights. It used to stop at the back of the station to the N entrance on its way into town but the operator cut that, and all buses coming from N of river that stopped at the north entrance, during the pandemic in the grounds no one was using the trains. Now if anyone with suitcases etc wants to get to the station they take the X40 because it stops closer to the station.
In town, there are two stops for the 22, and all the other Caversham buses. They’re both at the far edge of the town, outside Sainsbury’s and down the hill from the station. And both mean walking across town with shopping etc to reach the stops. Or even to take a bus somewhere else like the hospital. They removed the pedestrian crossing outside the station making it harder to get to the Forbury Road stop.
They run the 22 to coincide with the X40 both going into and coming out of town, meaning passengers needing to get up Priest hill often take the first available, usually the X40 because it’s more reliable. The X40 also has a stop right outside the station so much more convenient if you’re coming home with suitcases. And so on.
We who live over the river feel Reading buses has a distinct antipathy towards the suburb. We’ve all been to numerous consultation meetings, written letters etc to no avail.
Reading buses have finally decided to leave a whole area of the town with no bus service, although apparently the council has stepped in so an even more reduced service will at least run. It has seemed as if they’ve made the service unusable and then announced closure because no one uses it!
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The service to Caversham Heights is no different to the rest of the network, where cross-town links were gradually removed to improve reliability and marketability of each part of the network. Caversham has some of the most variable congestion due to the bottle-neck caused by the bridges.
For many, Friar Street is seen as a premium town centre location outside the largest town centre supermarket.
As for the Station, buses do in fact call at the station (the busier southern part is in Roger’s photo), and passengers just remain onboard at Friar Street to travel there. Or from Friar Street, Friar’s Walk provides a pleasant traffic-free walkway to the Station with no hill involved.
Services to the Hospital drop of and pick up from the next stop on Friar Street for easy interchange.
The 22 is very good for punctuality. The variability of the X40 timetable coming all the way from Oxford is impossible to perfectly integrate with, particularly in both directions, without adding lots of layover in the middle of a circular route which no doubt would also be unpopular. In fact, there is no obvious change that could be made to the timetable that wouldn’t require extra buses.
So there are counter-balances to most of the criticisms levelled at the service.
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there’s plenty to disagree with in this statement. The 22 is much less reliable than the x40, as one who uses it regularly can vouch. It sometimes doesn’t turn up at all, and as it’s infrequent that’s v unhelpful.
The Forbury Road stop is down the hill from the station and not convenient involving crossing a side road where cars rarely stop for pedestrians.
Reading buses decided to end having any of the Caversham buses call into the North entrance of the station, so I can no longer use the service if I’m travelling with suitcases and have to use the X40 as it stops closer to the station. The station was redeveloped with a north entrance, but the only people it’s now useful for are motorists using the multi-storey car park. Even the bus drivers of the 22,23,24 etc think it was a poor decision.
The stop outside Sainsbury’s is not a great location at all, as most of the shops people might travel into town to use, Mand S, John Lewis’s etc are a walk away. The walk through from Friar st only opened a few months ago, and it is not an easy pleasant stroll if you’re elderly etc with a heavy suitcases, compared to the stop we used to have for the N entrance.
When we north of the river residents have pointed out that every other service has a town centre stop further down Friar Street or on Station Hill, we just get dismissed. The Forbury Road stop has a narrow pavement, served by the 22,23,24,25, X40 and numerous other services and it can get crowded. Still that’s not a good enough reason for Reading buses to give services running to the N of the town a stop closer to the centre and with more space for queuing.
The comment above is exactly what we’ve heard from Reading buses for years. They’ve got no interest at all in listening to their users.
and yes there’s a lot of congestion on the two bridges because too many people drive. But then the bus service is poor so that feeds more people driving, more congestion etc.
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Ah, where is the Ford Transit privatatisation dream of buses every 10 or 15 mins buzzing to the suburbs then back around the town.
I assume other passing services run a little later for the fairly busy evening economy in Reading but otherwise the times look acceptable for the kind of folk Roger encountered using the route.
JBC Prestatyn
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I hope the BSIP funded X40 (not mentioned in article that tax payer enhanced service) hasn’t further underminded a commercial service
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interesting as ever, Roger.
LTA’s main target is passenger growth.
I doubt if the extra passengers generated through PnR subsidy will be anywhere near those lost through this route being axed.
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However good RB are lauded as being, their timetabling leaves a lot to be desired and Caversham departures to/from Reading all seem to clump together leaving 20 min gaps to the next bus! And, why, when the route has such poor loadings, do they use such big vehicles? The 25 could interwork with other services as it had done before!
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2,500 people signed the petition, eh? If that translated into actual bus use Reading Buses would be looking at increasing the frequency, not withdrawing the route.
I will say what Reading Buses, Matt Rodda MP and the Council cannot. If you want a route to continue, you must use it. If you have a car, you must leave it parked up sometimes when the bus provides a reasonable alternative (as a minimum, once a week). It’s all very well professing to care for elderly and disadvantaged ‘other people’ who will be left without a service but frankly, if you are not willing to use the bus yourself you are part of the problem.
Julian Walker
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Caversham residents have always always been a lot more willing to sign a petition than they are to take the bus. Being charitable, you might say that it’s car drivers looking out for their neighbours who are dependent on the bus, but unless they actually start using it we’ll be back here in a year or two.
Having read the press release last night, I assume there is some creative accounting going on. Reading Borough and the ZEBRA will pay for the bus so the depreciation is removed from the costs of running the route, plus the fact that its electric will further reduce the costs.
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