Handcross District Community Bus old route history.

[stadler]

Does anyone know if there is a way to find out route history for community bus routes?

I am trying to find out what route 5 was that Handcross District Community Bus operated.

Currently they run five routes:

1 - MO - Handcross to Horsham via Lower Beeding
2 - TH - Handcross to Burgess Hill
3 - FR - Handcross to Haywards Heath
4 - FR - Handcross to Horsham via Warninglid
6 - WE - Handcross to Horsham via Colgate

But the number 5 is missing from the sequence. I have quite a few old Handcross District Community Bus timetable leaflets going back ten years to 2015 and it was still the same back then. So it must have been withdrawn at some point in the late 2000s or early 2010s maybe.

There has never been another route 5 anywhere in the area so they are not skipping it to avoid duplication. It must have operated at one point. On the government website there is a "find registered local bus services" search where you can see many old routes but it does not work for any community bus operators as they seem to be registered differently. I have also tried looking for other historical community bus routes on there and it does not work for any operator. I also checked the web archive for Handcross District Community Bus but they only created their website in 2017 which had the same exact timetable as now.

Does anyone remember what the route 5 that Handcross District Community Bus operated was?

 

[duncombec]

I've been through old West Sussex CC timetable guides for 1998-2003, and there are only routes 1-4 then, albeit on different weekdays to now in some cases. That may help you narrow down your search, either up or down.

 

[Bishopstone]

There has never been another route 5 anywhere in the area so they are not skipping it to avoid duplication. It must have operated at one point.

Not necessarily. There may have been a plan for a route 5 which was never implemented, or maybe someone in the organisation was superstitious about the number 5, so chose to skip it when numbering routes.

There is no regulatory requirement to number bus routes consecutively, as far as I'm aware: TfL have chosen numbers in the 400-500 range for new routes, even though several numbers <200 have become available in recent years, thanks to routes being scrapped or merged.