New evening bus services coming to Fareham and Gosport in "significant boost" for public transport - when

First Solent will be operating more services on its E1 and E2 during the evenings from May 2024. Passengers will be able to hop on the vehicles every 20 minutes. The 9/9A will also be getting more buses in the evening, with a vehicle operating every hour. Hampshire County Council (HCC) have allocated £4.2m of government funding to increase the service levels of 15 of its routes across Gosport, Fareham, Basingstoke, Winchester and elsewhere.

James Eustace, commercial director at First Solent, said: "We’re proud to be able to serve communities in the Fareham, Gosport, Stubbington, Lee-on-the-Solent, Locks Heath and Lowford areas with increased frequency and better evening bus services from May onwards.

"Working together with Hampshire County Council, bus travel is being transformed across our operating area, and these enhancements build on improvements introduced recently on our network, including earlier morning and late night services on other routes, including the 3 and the Star 7 and 8. With electric buses on our routes entering service from April onwards this is just the start of even more exciting developments planned for 2024.”

Other bus routes into Portsmouth are also being improved. The X4 from Southampton via Fareham will see more vehicles running in the evening every hour between Monday and Saturday. The F1 route between Fareham and Highlands will stop at the Sainsbury's. The department for transport have provided £7.2m to Hampshire as part of its Bus Service Improvement Plan.

Councillor Nick Adams-King, executive member for universal services at HCC, said: "This is a significant boost for the bus network in Hampshire which will help more people to make the choice to leave the car at home and to travel more easily and economically to get to and from work, college, shops or for an evening out which, in turn, will help support the local economy. Coupled with the government’s support in capping single journey fares to £2 a trip means this is a tremendous opportunity for more people to step on board, give bus travel a try and experience the convenience.

“We have worked in partnership with local bus companies operating services across the county to identify those routes that have potential to see a good growth in passenger numbers. While the funding will be in place to support the improvements for two years, our collective ambition is for bus use to sufficiently increase over this time so that the improvements will continue long beyond this timeframe.”

The county council will be using additional government funding to promote bus travel in a bid to encourage more people to use buses for everyday journeys. Further information can be found on the council's bus timetables and visitors websites.