30/01/2026
Transport Update - 826 service.
We are aware of a scheme of road closures in Earls Colne which commenced on Monday 26th January, and will continue in various phases until mid-April at the earliest. These works are being undertaken by Cadent to renew aging gas infrastructure in the area. This post will aim to act as a debrief for the disruption and poor communication regarding this closure this week, as well as provide clear communication of what the situation will be going forwards for our bus services through the works.
To start, we received details of the initial plan for these closures in early January and had at an early stage identified the severe impacts these closures would have on our local bus and school bus provision. We flagged this impact to Essex County Council (who we have been liaising with on this closure ever since) who then approached Cadent for any mitigations they could provide to assist us in continuing to serve Earls Colne as much as physically possible.
The mitigation that was provided to us, was that the initial phase of works (in place now until 16th February) would be operated under two-way lights with full access for bus services to allow us time to create a full communication plan for our passengers of the disruption caused in future phases - on this basis, we did not produce any diversion plans or customer communications for this first phase, as we did not believe there would be significant disruption to our services.
On the morning of Monday 26th January (first day of works), we discovered that the temporary traffic lights were instead a full road closure and consequently had to place our public services on diversion at very short notice. Luckily, our school services were able to get through before the road was closed. Subsequently, considering the number of school children & members of the public that would be affected and the extremely limited time to communicate diversions out - we immediately requested if access through the works would be possible to maintain a normal service until we could get further communications out to passengers.
The above was agreed for all bus services and consequently from late-afternoon on Monday 26th January, all bus services were allowed through the closure by Cadent which worked well to keep our customers connected on Tuesday & Wednesday. Unfortunately, due to reported safety issues - our access through the closure for public bus services (operated by sister company Konectbuses) was revoked on Thursday morning without warning to us, but luckily our schools services were not affected by this in either the morning or afternoon. However, as of late afternoon on Thursday - we were informed that access would no longer be possible for either public bus services or those school services. As a result of this, we will be implementing clear diversions away from the works area for the remaining duration of the works.
Flagfinders 814/817/818/826 will be operating a temporary timetable effective immediately - details have been sent to schools, will be texted to account holders and will be available on our website.
These diversions will be in place until the end of service on Monday 16th February, when a new closure is due to start on Upper Holt Street from Tuesday 17th February. We will update this news page and our service updates tab once we have our publicity prepared.
We apologise profusely for the disruption caused to your journeys this week and for the months ahead, but hope that our explanation of the events of this week as well as clarity on how our buses will be operating in the coming weeks will be welcome news
