Latest News from Southwestbus

Southwestbus is pleased to announce the introduction of new service 59 between Wincanton and Shaftesbury from 1 December 2025. It will operate via Bayford, Bourton, Zeals, Mere, Milton on Stour, Gillingham and Motcombe providing five journeys each way Monday to Saturday daytimes. At Wincanton Memorial Hall the bus will connect with service 58/58A for Templecombe, Sherborne and Yeovil.  During school terms, the bus will also serve Shaftesbury School thanks to Dorset Council purchasing a number of annual passes for entitled students. 

From Monday 5th January 2026 again thanks to Dorset Council buying a number of annual passes for entitled students, the Yeovil to Dorchester X12 will have a second bus introduced onto the service. This means more buses will be able to serve Evershot and Cattistock and there will be an increase in through journeys to/from Yeovil. There will be a mid afternoon journey from Dorchester to Cattistock.  

Yeovil College buses from 3/11/25

For over a year now, we have provided a number of dedicated bus services for students attending Yeovil College. 

We are pleased to announce that the last three of these routes begin more frequent operation from 3/11/25. 

Service YC1 is replaced with new route 66. It will link Gillingham and Shaftesbury with Salisbury, in addition to serving Yeovil. It will operate every two hours Mondays to Saturdays. 

Services YC3/4 are replaced with new routes X12 and X16 operating six days a week. X12 will offer shopping journeys off peak for the villages of Evershot & Cattistock on it's way to Dorchester, as well as fast 'through' journeys between Yeovil & Dorchester, stopping at Maiden Newton en route. 

X16 will operate between Yeovil, Sherborne, Cerne Abbas and Dorchester offering school journey opportunities into Dorchester and Sherborne, for which Dorset Council have bought a number of seats for entitled students ensuring the commercial viability of the additional bus required.  Frequency is broadly two hourly, but it's worth consulting the timetable as it's been devised to ensure school and college students can get to their destinations. 

Service 55/55X changes from Sunday 31st August 2025

We are ending operations on Service 55/55X between Taunton & Barnstaple from Sunday 31st August.

Whilst the route has excellent potential, it’s length makes it challenging to operate as does Barnstaple’s world renowned traffic congestion. Loadings haven't been as anticipated. So we have amicably agreed with the other operator on that service that we shall focus on our respective areas. So, they’ll continue to run a service as now between South Molton and Barnstaple and we’ll introduce a new service 25 between Dulverton and Taunton making better use of the current resources committed to the corridor.

The 25 will offer four trips into the Exmoor National Park. Between Wiveliscombe and Taunton, buses will run approximately hourly during the daytime with some additional trips into the evenings. A Sunday/Bank Holiday service along the full length of route is being provided with three journeys.

A new bus link between Taunton and Minehead

We have been repeatedly asked whether we can run a bus route between Minehead and Taunton.

We've decided time and again we'll not operate such a route. Until now.

We are pleased to announce we're going live with Service 28 on 31st August 2025.

Many have asked us too if this route can serve the county’s main hospital, Musgrove Park on the route too. Guess what?  We’re doing that. 

We’ll also pass BTC Taunton on the way in/out so if you attend college, we’ve got that covered too.

In Minehead we’re serving Tesco. If you’re going to Butlins, we can take you there. To help us run reliably we’ll have one route around Minehead where we take in the major places before returning to Taunton.

But best of all is how often we’re going to run this route. In the daytime, it will run every 20 minutes. There’ll be buses into the late evening, and on a Sunday during the summer we’ll operate every half hour because there's going to be more people needing the bus. During the winter, we’ll operate once an hour.

We’ll back up this timetable with attractive fares, season tickets and a dedicated team of drivers who’ll only work this route because we need the support of you, the customer to succeed. You’ll get to know them all and they’ll get to know you too. They'll know which gate or lampost to drop you off at and pick you up from. They'll remember which day you'll be travelling.

We’re known for our excellent customer service on our other routes and for always turning up when the timetable says it will. Even in the snow. 

Other bus operators feel this an optional extra whereas we believe strongly that regular and reliable bus services deliver passenger journeys. 

If that means someone leaving a desk to go and drive the bus, that’s what we do. Because you rely on us to get you there.

From Sunday 24th August we will be operating the route for the first week free of charge, so you can try out your new bus route. We’ll also be able to get the route going before the start of the new academic year. Some of our heritage buses will come out to play too. You might find people high up in the company out and about and behind the wheel of some of them.

We’re really looking forward to serving our new customers with the start of the new 28 service, providing what you've asked us for.

We are Southwestbus. We are locally owned and locally managed.

We are passionate about buses. And we’re here to serve our customers.

MAINLINE 15 improvements

We are delighted to announce a major improvement to the frequency of our mainline service 15 which operates between Burnham on Sea, Bridgwater, Taunton, Musgrove Park Hospital and Wellington from Sunday 7th September 2025.

There’s going to be more buses. And those buses will have more room, too. They’re going to have an upstairs. As we can’t run these taller buses under the bridge at Taunton Railway Station (others try this and they get stuck. there is a lot of paperwork) we’re going to introduce a permanent variation of the 15, the 15A.

This will take a different route around Monkton Heathfield, through Bathpool. Creech Castle, Hamilton Road and will pass East Reach before rejoining the normal line of route at Taunton Parade. These journeys will run every 30 minutes.

The ‘current’ service will continue via Taunton Station and will also run every 30 minutes. It will continue to use single decker buses. Those will be clearly identified as Route 15.

Between the main points the frequency is 15 minutes. Doesn’t matter if you get on in Wellington, Bridgwater, Burnham on Sea or at Taunton Parade. There will be a bus every 15 minutes in the daytime, Mondays to Saturdays. We are going to run every half hour after 7pm until 10pm and there will be departures after midnight from Taunton.

Our Sunday and Bank Holiday service will increase to every half hour during the daytime, all year round. In the evenings, an hourly frequency will be provided. Those buses won’t operate via East Reach or Hamilton Road, for the time being but we will monitor this and make changes if necessary for the spring of 2026.

These changes are effective from Sunday 7th September 2025 with the first full day of operation will be Monday 8th September.

Group Managing Director, Stephanie Charlton commented on the improvements: "Generally you remain in business by offering what customers want and we've seen the demand for buses increase substantially over the last year. The advent of the new college year is anticipated to see further rises in student numbers, so we are delighted to be able to provide extra capacity on the route.

Recent business changes mean we currently have a surplus of driving staff so this has meant we've been able to look at our bus network and make some improvements making use of these buses and drivers."

Our notetaker had drifted off by this point and no one else seems to pay attention on the top floor so any further wibble from our Lady and Mistress is unrecorded.