Thursday 27th August 2026
Readers may recall the journey I took on route 99 in the Chew Valley operated by The Big Lemon for the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority back in April and explained how the route had been introduced after a community campaign in September 2024 to fill gaps in the rural network as well as help promote tourism to the scenic Chew Valley.
When first introduced the route originally ran “in a rough figure of eight”...
… but despite a revamp of both the route and timetable in August 2025, when I travelled earlier this year on its more simplified routing, its future looked uncertain with a commitment to only operate until the end of July due to financial constraints at the Authority.
In the event the 99 did come to an end on 25th July but the good news is, along with another Big Lemon operated service – route 2V, it was replaced by two new routes numbered 100 and 101 and a revision to route 768 commencing from Monday 27th July.
These two new routes open up even more of the area to journey possibilities including reinstating some of the links lost when the 99 was revised in August 2025.
As the map below shows, the 100 links Bath with Bristol via the Chew Valley (including the villages of Timsbury, Farnborough, High Littleton and Hallatrow before continuing via Clutton and Bishop Sutton to Chew Stoke and Chew Magna).
Operated by The Big Lemon, it runs hourly on Mondays to Saturdays from 05:50 to 19:22 (with an adjustment in the late afternoon) thus offering an impressive addition to the bus network in this part of the West of England region. Four buses are needed to operate the service.
Route 101 is more localised linking Radstock, Westfield and Midsomer Norton with Bishop Sutton taking in some of the delightful villages in the area including Hallatrow, Farrington Gurney, Clutton, Pensford, Chew Magna and Chew Stoke.
It’s operated by Midsomer Norton based coach company Centurion which for a few years now has been operating a few bus routes as a sub-contractor to Abus which won the tender from the West of England Combined Authority for the 101. The timetable provides for a 90 minute frequency on Mondays to Saturdays between 07:00 and 19:21 and takes two buses.
As you can see from the map, routes 100 and 101 join the X91 which runs between Bristol, Bishop Sutton and Ubley (also operated by The Big Lemon) and was introduced with the 99 in 2024 while modified route 768 (operated by Kempsford Transport) links Bath with Radstock and Writhlington via Nailwell, Farmborough and Timsbury – a route I sampled back in October last year.
When I travelled on the 99 on a Saturday back in April, it was a rather lonely affair with just myself for almost the entire round trip journey with a couple making a short journey from Bishop Sutton to Pensford as there’d been a problem with the bus operating route X91 they’d hoped to catch that day.
I made another visit to Chew Valley last Saturday to see how the new arrangements are doing after four weeks.
I arrived in Bath to catch the 10:20 departure on route 100, planning to travel on this to Chew Valley Lake where I’d change to route 101 to take me over to Radstock and in so doing cover all the delightful villages served by these two routes.
As with route 768, buses on the 100 don’t use the conveniently located bus station adjacent to Bath Spa railway station, but instead depart from a more isolated bus stop on Ambury, a short walk away. I arrived soon after 10:00 and spotted two passengers already waiting who, looking like they were ready for a nice walk in the Somerset countryside, I guessed were also planning to catch the 100.
The timetable shows the bus arriving from its previous journey at 10:00 but there was no sign of it, and on checking the bustimes.org website I saw it was 20 minutes away, therefore running considerably late.
Indeed, it arrived at 10:21 and I was impressed to see 15 passengers alight but what isn’t known is how many came from the villages further out on the route rather than within Bath city itself. Some must have been from the former as they were enquiring with the driver as they alighted about return times.
The destination blind was changed and myself and the two passengers were soon aboard and we left at 10:24 heading south westerly out of the city on the A367 passing the Odd Down Park & Ride site before turning off to serve Timsbury and Farmborough.
It’s a lovely ride through North East Somerset’s countryside…
… as well as the villages the bus passes through.
We got a bit delayed in Timsbury due to a road closure necessitating a diversion through some quite narrow roads with parking, and luckily we passed one of the buses heading in the other direction at a road junction where it didn’t cause a problem.
The couple who’d boarded in Bath alighted in Clutton leaving just myself on board for the rest of the journey, and, as shown on the above map I alighted when the bus reached Chew Valley Lake where I planned to switch to the 101 and it was good to see a passenger waiting to board, so at least the driver wouldn’t get too lonely for the rest of the journey to Bristol.
Chew Valley Lake is a lovely spot to enjoy with facilities for picnics as well as refreshments, and a new playground has opened and a new 2.7 km trail planned.
Hopefully with three bus routes now passing by (100, 101, and X91) some visitors will opt to travel by bus. If so, I hope a pole and bus top flag together with a timetable case can be placed on the northbound stop by the Picnic Site. It was good to see a timetable on the southbound stop…
… albeit the flag looked a bit hazardous with its yellow and back tape…
… but the northbound stop was bereft of anything, other than road markings, and a Kassel Kerb for level boarding, which was good to see.
The bus on route 101 soon appeared in the distance, having started its journey in nearby Bishop Sutton and I was greeted by the friendly driver, being the only passenger.
As the earlier ‘network map’ showed, the 101 follows the same route as the 100 (and X91) to Chew Stoke and Chew Magna – both delightful villages, and the latter in particular proving very popular with tourists and cyclists enjoying a coffee break in the sunshine…
… then it’s onwards via a very narrow section of road with stone brick walls giving little scope to pass any traffic coming the other way…
… after which we turned south to travel through through Pensford soon duplicating the 100 again, through Clutton and Temple Cloud, where we came across a long queue of traffic for the traffic lights at Farrington Gurney…
… which delayed us for about five minutes but the good news is we had picked a passenger up in Clutton who had used the bus before and was travelling to Midsomer Norton.
The next place served is Paulton where the route takes on a completely different characteristic by diverting around some very narrow residential roads to serve a development that looked like it had been built in the last couple of decades or so…
… and there was even a bus shelter at one of the bus stops, but sadly it looked as though there was no timetable information.
More twists and turns followed until we reached the main road again and then instead of turning left towards Midsomer Norton we turned right to serve a Tesco store by doing a circuit of the car park…
… but despite all these deviations, sadly no custom came forth and the only bit of activity was as we entered Midsomer Norton we had a driver changeover just by the Centurion coach depot.
On reaching the Hollies in Midsomer Norton I spotted a First Bus on route 172 pulling up behind us…
… so I alighted for a journey back to Bath leaving the 101 to finish its journey by heading over to Radstock and then to its terminus at Westfield as shown on the earlier map.
There was a cardboard box of leaflets on the bus giving details of the timetable for that route (as photographed earlier), and I understand a well designed composite leaflet for both the 100 and 101 is in hand. Let’s hope this can be printed and wisely distributed very soon because the success of these routes will depend on raising awareness of the great links and travel opportunities they offer.
Roger French
Summer blogging timetable: 06:00 TThSSu
BusAndTrainUser 
Just a slight correction – Centurion has operation abus services since September 2022, when the original owner of abus came out of retirement. This includes the 22, 96 and 178. (Now first routes U4, 36 and 522).
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Many thanks for this – I’ll adjust the wording.
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One just hopes and prays that the recent unprecedented uplift in many rural areas are getting the usual “village bush telegraph” treatment. Often publicity, and certainly any form of network map from the local authority and/or bus company providers, is non-existent. I am often pleasantly surprised that so many people actually do know some of these services exist, and none more so than the walking fraternity. A recent late Saturday afternoon journey through the Meon Valley (in a splendid Stagecoach 22 year old Dennis Trident!) produced so many Walkers, we were almost half full on arrival in Winchester. One can but hope that Residents in places now enjoying major service improvements are similarly enthusiastic.
Terence Uden
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WECA seem to be an amateurish organisation with too much money. First they scrap a raft of longstanding rural routes with little thought or consultation, then they introduce at vast cost a huge DRT operation which has been though so many iterations that’s it’s clearly been a failure( as was easily predictable). Then the 99 is cut due to lack of funding, it was basically going to be a failure as it required a non guaranteed bus change to get anywhere worthwhile( again totally predictable) Now we have this, 4 buses, circa £600,000 cost. At least it goes somewhere worth going to, but at what cost.
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In that case, how about leave things as they are now? The chopping and changing in this area over the past few years definitely doesn’t save anything. Time to accept it’s a rural area, services need subsidy and then just run a network that connects the villages with their nearest towns/ cities at useable frequencies and across a useful stretch of the day every day, be reliable and then leave it alone from there. The map showing just the 100, 101 and X91 looks like it’s a good way there and far more useful than what the area has seen in a good while.
Aaron
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A tidy up of the bus stops will help. I assume the pick up set down restrictions on the timetable are for route sections where other services pass those stops and keep these routes free of the overdemand, the adult comes free when a free child travels in August is a nice touch. Timetables on the bus stops are a must even when leaflets are in substantial existence , they reinforce that the route is operating and serving such stops , though in days past the rather large Western National and other THC related company panels of timetables would sometimes be near a stop maybe on a highish wall often with details of not only the immediate route but others in the area , while the lonely pole with the metal “Bus Stop” in company colour would sometimes have no timetable or other panel at all even in the 1970s. Do any of those small Bus Stop plates exist in use in England or Wales anywhere or did the EEC style pictogram sign eventually sweep all away ?
JBC Prestatyn
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I pass by an old style painted bus stop plate attached to a lamp post when visiting my daughter. This one though does not have raised lettering so possibly produced locally.
I think many old style stops were replaced during the 1970s and those that weren’t were replaced by new signs with the Traveline wording and 0871 telephone number.
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You were back in my manor, Roger, and I still didn’t get to see you nor your boots a’ walkin’!!!
The wonderful world of WECA is a curious thing. In 2023, all but a few routes (in Bath) were axed in the Chew and Cam Valleys as they embraced DRT. Then that was scaled back and a limited number of fixed routes appeared such as the 2V and 99 just a year later. Then threats to those routes and instead we have a splurge of new services. These have been aimed at those areas that have shouted loudest and so other places still have little to no service or are left to DRT.
That leads onto another point. Chew Valley has a vociferous campaign group and not only did they gain the 100, they have also retained the X91 that duplicates it from Chew into Bristol. Apparently, they don’t want to lose the X91 and perhaps aren’t convinced by the 100…
Your late running 100 is not surprising given the highly ambitious timetable. The Bath end is challenging but the timings from South Bristol into the centre are frankly unrealistic and especially in comparison with the aforementioned X91. That is WECA’s fault, not in so far as they dictated the timetable but that they didn’t so it was left to tenderers to submit their times.
I notice you didn’t mention the relative merits of the two operators. Centurion/Abus are a decent tidy operation and as such, not a shock that they had their vehicles repainted and readied for day one. Not been on them yet but imagine they’re tidy inside (if not overburdened by passengers). Now let me guess about the 100… as well as being aimed along the road rather than being driven in order to keep to time, you’d have had a noisy, rattling e200 that shuddered on hitting every patch in the road. As an aside, you may have twigged that it was still wearing part of the ill fated CT plus branding with Big Lemon vinyls added. Arguably, it would’ve been better to have another five of those Sprinters, and make the 100 more realistically timed.
I would also say for those posters looking from afar, these new routes have featured prominently in the local press (e.g. MSN Journal), local Facebook pages, and paid promos on social media as well as local publicity.
Thanks again for returning to this corner of Somerset, and yes, it is beautiful
BW2
ps The Cam Valley is the bit east of the A37 so Timsbury, Tunley et al; it’s not all about those posh folk in Chew 🙂
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No timetable information at bus stops is a schoolboy error. From reading various Busandtrainuser blogs, it seems that missing or incorrect/out of date timetables at stops are by no means rare. In some cases, according to a recent blog, this is due to the bus operator claiming they have no authority to post information at bus stops, only the local authority can!
All this stupidity and inconsistency is in itself a very persuasive argument for bringing public transport under the coordination of local authorities, rather than the miasma of independent privatised operators all doing it “their way”, while local authorities effectively leave them to it.
Readers would be well rewarded by visiting countries such as Switzerland and The Netherlands, and seeing for themselves how public transport should be run.
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Maybe I have misunderstood something, but is not WECA a public authority?
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Erm… I hate to break it to you but anon 11:38 is correct. These routes are initiated by West of England Combined Authority, and the responsibility for roadside publicity resides with them (I believe now) and was previously with the four local unitary authorities and has been since deregulation IIRC. Many of the long established routes DO have timetable cases and indeed, have times in them. This is an oversight by WECA – nothing to do with “the miasma of independent privatised operators” who are merely contractors.
BW2
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in WECA operators are not permitted to put information on stops. The CA do that. Abus/ Centurion produced a leaflet that was delivered door to door over large sections of the route. The allocation was at quite short notice and Centurion did very well to obtain vehicles and paint brand and prepare for service in about 3 weeks. The take your adult free promotion was an attempt to increase passenger numbers as quickly as possible. We now await the start of term as there has been interest expressed by a number of parents in service 101
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Just such a shame the timings on the 100 are impossible – 6 minutes from Temple Meads to Bedminster Highbury Road as an example in the rush hour is ludicrous.
It’s struggled to keep to time since it started – it doesn’t bode well for the schools going back in September.
Worse launching an unreliable hourly service than it just being every 90 minutes.
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The Big Lemon fleet is an embarrassment. Shabby looking vehicles with paper numbers stuck in the window.
The recently saved K1 town bus in Keynsham is a shabby VW Transporter, no destination and Brighton Community legals. I’ve seen it three times with the doors stuck partly open whilst in service.
Centurion vehicles on the other hand are smart and well presented.
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