Newport Bus’s expansion

Thursday 22nd October 2026

Following Tuesday’s blog highlighting Kent Country’s expansion, this time I’m taking a look at how Newport Bus has expanded over the years to become a significant player in Monmouthshire and, more recently Herefordshire, many miles from its city based heartland in Newport.

The company operates what it calls a Regional Network with its website helpfully displaying a route map showing how coverage now stretches from Hereford, Monmouth, Abergavenny and Pontypool north of Newport, and over to Chepstow, Bristol and the Forest of Dean in the east.

Monmouth’s bus scene is now dominated by Newport Bus with a host of inter-urban routes serving Hereford, Abergavenny and Chepstow (via two different routes) as well as Newport. I’ve recently explored all five of these routes and recommend them as great ways to enjoy the spectacular scenery Monmouthshire has to offer.

Longest standing of these routes is the 60 between Monmouth and Newport. It was back in 2011 when Newport Bus first tried its hand at linking the two towns with a competing limited stop/express bus numbered X11.

Nowadays its council funded route 60 provides an hourly timetable via Raglan and Usk and when I travelled on the route on a Saturday, a few weeks ago, the 13:00 departure from Newport carried 11 passengers boarding in the bus station and another nine along the journey with 14 boarding in Monmouth to return on the 14:06 with two more boarding as we headed back south.

It’s a fast paced route on an unclassified road (which I guess used to be the A449 until the was upgraded on a more eastern alignment)…

… with some great views especially once into Monmouthshire.

On another day I travelled on route 68 from Abergavenny via Raglan to Monmouth.

I caught the 13:09 from Abergavenny – one of seven journeys a day.

This was a quieter journey than the 60 with just four boarding in Abergavenny’s bus station of whom two soon alighted and the other two travelling all the way to Monmouth.

The bus spends the first 15 minutes of the 40 minute journey running non-stop along the A40 so no opportunities for passengers to board and alight until Raglan where the bus doubled back to avoid an awkward right turn on to the A40 (which the bus on route 60 managed to do)..

… after which it follows a similar route into Monmouth as the 60 except every other journey diverts for a four minute double run to serve Dingestow village.

We only picked up two other passengers, one on the main road by the road to Dingestow and the other in Mitchel Troy, so a quiet journey.

On arrival in Monmouth I’d planned to head down to Chepstow on the scenic route 69 departing at 14:10 which uses the winding A466 following the path of the River Wye. Unfortunately a bad accident that morning had closed the road leading to buses on the route having to undertaken a massive diversionary alternative, effectively following the route taken by route 65 which also connects the two towns.

The bus due an hour earlier had still not arrived into Monmouth, and when it did, it headed straight off out of service, so with no information about the other bus (and official news from Newport Bus who I’d rung being “the service has been suspended”) there was no alternative but with other disappointed route 69 passengers we all caught the next route 65 instead. What a shame the large electronic sign by the bus stop can’t show an update along the lines of “service suspended due to an accident”.

Route 65 takes a more circuitous route via a number of villages taking 55 minutes to reach Chepstow rather than the quicker 46 minute journey time on the 69.

The 65 only runs two-hourly (Mondays to Saturdays) with no Sunday service while the 69 has an hourly timetable (two-hourly Saturdays and four journeys on Sundays) and luckily there wasn’t too long to wait until the 65 departed at 14:25.

Not surprisingly 23 passengers boarded (including students), with 20 travelling all the way to Chepstow and the other three alighting in Pentwyn, The Narth and Trelleck (three of the lovely villages served) and just two more boarded as we headed south (in Treleck Common and Devauden).

It was a lovely route to travel along and I see there’s even a community group called Friends of the 65 bus with a website including the timetable, details of fares and a leaflet promoting travel by bus in the Wye Valley (on the 65 as well as the 69).This also gives the background to the formation of the group which was in 2018 when Monmouthshire Council was going to withdraw the route leading to a very successful campaign to save the route and introduce initiatives to raise its profile and promote it to the community and visitors.

The website explains “we have a named contact in each of the villages along the route who takes responsibility for promoting the 65 Bus in their communities and looking after the bus stops in their village.” It sounds like a fantastic community run arrangement and shows what can be done. What a pity it took the threat of withdrawal of the route to get it established and if only such enthusiasm could be shown in other villages all over Britain for their local bus route.

I returned to Monmouthshire for a third time last week to finish off the exploration of these routes including reuniting myself with that missing route 69.

This time I boarded it in Chepstow to head north to Monmouth catching the 12:06 departure from the bus station with three other passengers all of whom alighted within the first few minutes of the journey leaving just myself on board until we reached Tintern at 12:23 where two boarded with another three boarding as we continued what is a fantastic journey north along one of the country’s most winding roads following the Wye Valley.

As always it’s hard to capture the delights of such a scenic journey with a mobile phone camera on a moving single deck bus but here’s a couple to give readers a flavour…

… including the ruins of Tintern Abbey…

… which the Google camera car captured better than I managed.

We arrived into Monmouth bus station as scheduled at 12:54 in good time to connect with my fifth route of this quintet, the 13:06 route 66 which continues the northerly trajectory from Chepstow to Monmouth along the A466 to Hereford.

Well, that’s what I’d expected the departure time to be having consulted the timetable on the Newport Bus website as well as bustimes.org. Confusingly the large electronic departure sign in the bus station was showing the departure as 13:25…

… and rather unhelpfully there was no printed timetable on display among some of the others to confirm either way.

Even more confusing, when I looked online again, although the home page for route 66 on Newport Bus’s website was indeed showing 13:06, clicking on the option for downloading the pdf version, showed it departing at 13:25.

In the event a double deck bus arrived at 13:06 screened up for route 66 with a couple of passenger alighting. The driver explained he was running late and needed a toilet stop before departing but invited the four of us waiting to sit on board until he returned, which he soon did with another passenger arriving (who possibly thought it was due away at 13:25) and we left at 13:13.

It’s another great journey taking 54 minutes along the next section north of the winding A466, although the River Wye has now veered to the east but the road is still quite challenging in parts and indeed is signed as a route to Hereford for “Light Traffic Only”.

I soon saw why.

Although the road did improve as we headed further north…

… and later joined the A49.

It’s another great route for scenery, all the better for being on a double deck.

One of the five passengers on board alighted in St Weonards, 22 minutes into the journey, and that was it with no other boarders and the four on board alighting when we arrived in Hereford’s congested town centre, before continuing to the railway station with half a dozen passengers boarding for the journey back to Monmouth, and where work is underway constructing a new ‘transport hub’.

I very much enjoyed my travels around Monmouthshire and recommend the area especially if combined with a visit to the nearby Forest of Dean. It’s good to see Newport Bus expanding beyond its traditional city based operations but I hope it’s got all its finances on track when bidding for these council supported routes. There have been ominous signs reported in the media recently about the company failing to submit its annual accounts on time. This even included a strike-off action and threat of dissolution from Companies House after missing the statutory deadline to file the accounts for year ending March 2025 by June 2026. This striking off notice was suspended last month as an objection was received by the Registrar, but at the time of writing the accounts have still not been filed.

It’s also a shame the Transport Hub travel office in Newport bus station alongside the Friars Walk shopping centre has never reopened after Covid. Let’s hope its poignantly empty contents are not an omen.

Roger French

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