100 British Bus Routes: Route 31
Havant to Hayling Island (Circular, clockwise)
16 July 2022
ABOVE: Stagecoach South 36826 (GX62 BBN), an ADL Enviro 200 with route 39 branding enters Beachlands, Hayling Island, on route 31. At this point we are about three-quarters of the way around the circuit. All photos in this article were taken on Thursday 14th July 2022.
Joint operation with route 30 - Havant to Hayling Island (circular, anti-clockwise)
Operator: Stagecoach South
Runs: Daily – no Sunday evening service
Weekday frequency: Every 30 minutes (every 15 minutes on routes 30 / 31 combined)
Estimated Vehicle Requirement: Peaks – Five buses (joint routes 30 / 31);
off-peaks two buses (plus two more for route 30)
Off-peak journey time: 55 minutes (full circuit)
Estimated route length: 13-14 miles (full circuit)
Operator: Stagecoach South
Runs: Daily – no Sunday evening service
Weekday frequency: Every 30 minutes (every 15 minutes on routes 30 / 31 combined)
Estimated Vehicle Requirement: Peaks – Five buses (joint routes 30 / 31);
off-peaks two buses (plus two more for route 30)
Off-peak journey time: 55 minutes (full circuit)
Estimated route length: 13-14 miles (full circuit)
I love a confusing and complicated bus route, and the 31, and its companion route 30, are certainly confusing and complicated!
You may be familiar with the concept of a ‘frying pan’ bus route (route 14 in this series is one example). It’s a route that is basically a circular service, but also has a ‘stub’ – in other words, they run up the handle, round the pan, and back down the handle to the starting point, which in this case is Havant Bus Station in Hampshire. But this one is extra complex, as there’s another handle at the other end… Or is it another pan…?
Havant Bus Station is a small but well-equipped bus station, with eight bus stands, a “Food and News” shop, WCs, and shelter from the elements, should it be required (not right now, as we’re part-way through the July 2022 heatwave). The information desk is closed, though.
The bus station also has a leaflet rack containing about 100 copies (no, I didn’t stop to count them, but I’m not exaggerating) of the Havant & Petersfield Public Transport Guide, a free 60-page A5 timetable booklet covering all services of all operators in the area. This is the bus providers’ catalogue and similar guides should be provided everywhere, as printed information does encourage new custom (I for one have spotted a couple of services in the booklet that I want to come back and try in the future).
But back to the Hayling Island buses. The route is confusing, as we shall see, but Havant’s buses (mostly run by Stagecoach) feel quite confused in their presentation as well.
There’s a fine livery for the buses on route 23 (Leigh Park to Southsea), but that hasn’t stopped a couple of double-deckers interloping, some of which are branded for the Portsmouth end of route 700 (Portsmouth to Brighton, sort-of – let Roger French explain why this route is so complicated). There’s also a 700-branded double-decker, in the awful, dull yellow livery now being applied by Stagecoach, working route 21 (Havant to Portsmouth).
Most of the buses in use on routes 30 / 31 today are branded for route 39 (Havant to Waterlooville, Wecock Farm), whilst the majority of those branded for ‘Hayling Island’ routes 30 / 31 are, perhaps unsurprisingly, working route 39. They’re the same buses (10.8m Enviro 200s) in all other respects, but it just looks sloppy.
ABOVE: The smart and non-intrusive Hayling Island branding is shown to good effect by these two pictures of Stagecoach 37278 (SL64 HXO) as it enters Havant Bus Station …
ABOVE: … whilst working route 39!
ABOVE: The Hayling Island bus brand in close-up, courtesy of 37276 (SL64 HXM), which was also working route 39.
Routes 30 & 31 provide the Hayling service, and departures alternate between the two. There’s some confusion amongst the 20 or so passengers at the bus station, as the departure on route 31 for 11.05am hasn’t turned up. A bus has just pulled in labelled 31, at the due time, but as the crowd has moved towards it, it has turned out to be forming the 11.20am departure on route 30.
The driver for the 11.05 service is there. “It’s definitely running,” he says, “and I’m here to reassure you of that”. All we need is the bus. Clearly there isn’t the flexibility to swap the bus that is now on stand for 11.20 into the 11.05 to provide a near on-time departure.
It’s reported that traffic is bad on the island (“always is when the sun comes out”), but that doesn’t seem to have affected the other services on the route.
The 11.20 (service 30) starts to load up a few minutes before its departure time. The driver invites the passengers who want the 31 to join us. He’ll be serving all of the right places; just not necessarily in the right order, Mr Preview! We can always jump across if the 31 turns up.
ABOVE: Companion service: Stagecoach 36829 (GX62 BDV), an Enviro 200, departs Havant Bus Station on route 30 towards Hayling Island, whilst Enviro 400 MMC 10944 (SN18 KNH) loads up whilst en route from Portsmouth to Flansham Park, Bognor Regis, on route 700.
It does turn up – a moment before our due departure time, the bus that is to be the 31 pulls in on the adjacent stand, and several people do change over. I decide to stay put for now and change a bit further down, where there won’t be so many buses around, and something labelled 31 will be a 31 and won’t morph into a 30, or vice versa!
We still have a decent load as we set off, including a woman who starts singing to herself quite loudly. Fortunately she stops as quickly.
The first hazard for routes 30 / 31 is to navigate out of Havant to the A27 Havant Bypass junction. This is one of those horrendous road infrastructure junctions that comprises of a dual carriageway running non-stop over the top, whilst everyone else has to negotiate the large roundabout underneath. When I tried the 30 some years ago, it took 20 minutes to get to this point (the timetable allows just one minute)!
No traffic problems today, and we’re soon across the A27 junction and heading due south through Langstone, still on the mainland.
We reach the Langstone Bridge, which is where we cross over to Hayling Island itself. It’s a full road bridge and feels more like a river crossing, with little impression that one is actually crossing onto an island. The views are lovely, of course.
Wikipedia records that the current bridge opened in 1956. This replaced a wooden road bridge where “only single-decker buses were allowed across … if they were carrying too many passengers, some had to get out and walk”! I fancy that the old bridge retired to span the Thames near Hammersmith.
ABOVE: Crossing Langstone Bridge and looking out over Sweare Deep
The stretch of water to the eastern side is called Sweare Deep; in ancient times, after the bridge was built, owners of tall boats would come here and find that the bridge was too low for them to pass through, so they would sweare deep as they navigated around to the other side of Hayling Island (I may have made that bit up...)!
About two-thirds of the way down Hayling Island we reach the Church Road roundabout, where the 30 and 31 head in opposite directions around the southern part of the island. The 31 turns left here and starts on a broadly-clockwise loop, initially through Mengham. The 30 turns right and starts on the loop in the opposite direction.
As we head down Rails Lane, the sea front comes into view. But, just as we think we’re there, the 31 takes a sudden left-turn onto Southwood Road, into a residential part of town. This is the really-confusing bit – a second ‘frying pan’ circular section attached to the main frying pan circular section!
Both routes 30 & 31 are undertaking this bit as a loop around the south-eastern tip of the island, Eastoke. (Incidentally, Eastoke is only three-and-a-half miles from Eastney as the crow flies, but that’s on the next island along, Portsea Island, so hopefully people don’t mix up the two!)
Buses on both routes head down Southwood Road, and come close to the south-eastern extremity of the island at Sandy Point. There’s supposed to be a nature reserve here but all the roads are marked “Private”. Buses (on both routes) turn north, then west, then south around a rectangular circuit. Then a right turn onto Southwood Road, and back down this particular frying pan handle.
Still with me? Just hang in there – the driver knows where he’s going, even if, back in Havant, he had told people that he hadn’t covered the Hayling routes for about 18 months! Turns out he does have a good memory for route details!
The two bus routes go their separate ways again; we turn left and finally reach the Promenade. This is a lovely drive, with the beach (shingle, with large rocks) and the various tourist facilities laid out before us. It’s a beautiful sunny day and that only enhances the overall impression of the resort; one that I think is probably under-rated compared to other places relatively nearby, like Southsea.
Something of a focal point, for the buses at least, is the Beachlands Bus Stand. Beachlands itself comprises of various amusement arcades, and a funfair that is “open seven days” (but today seemingly isn’t one of those days).
ABOVE: Stagecoach 15990 (YN64 XSU), an Enviro 400 with a Scania N230 UD chassis, puts in a guest appearance on route 31. It’s about 15 minutes late calling into the Beachlands “Bus Stand”, and unfortunately the picture has not captured the route details in the dot matrix display.
There is a turning circle for the buses and this is presumably the major timing point for both routes, although I’ve never seen a bus stand here for any longer than is necessary to load / unload, as they always seem to be borderline late, or worse!
ABOVE: Hayling Island beach, near Beachlands Bus Stand. The land mass opposite is likely to be the north-east coast of the Isle of Wight – somewhere around Nettlestone / Bembridge, I think.
To the west of Beachlands is a walk of about two miles to the Hayling Ferry. There are a couple of golf courses along the way, but it’s a surprisingly wild and rugged landscape. Even the 31 bus doesn’t venture along the last mile-and-a-half.
Instead, it turns northwards through West Town, from which a short drive takes us back to the Church Road roundabout. From there, we meet route 30 and head back the way we have come, via Langstone Bridge and into Havant.
The whole run has taken about 55 minutes. It’s nearly five miles down from Havant to the sea front at Hayling, and the same back again, of course. I reckon another three or four miles is covered with all of the manoeuvres at the south of the island.
I said at the beginning that these routes were “confusing and complicated”, and that’s certainly true. But the arrangement does seem to work reasonably well, and it is probably the best way to serve the various communities across Hayling Island. It’s a rural and car-dependent community (you can feel the affluence, especially around West Town), but it enjoys a pretty decent bus service!
ABOVE: A frying pan within a frying pan... The complicated shape of routes 30 & 31 on Hayling Island is well-demonstrated by this map from the Public Transport Guide (published by Hampshire County Council)