About

  • Founded in January 1995, Countywide Travel was a bus and coach operator based at a depot near Basingstoke Railway station and serviced parts of Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey using vehicles obtained from Marchwood Motorways.

  • In 1998, Countywide Travel relocated to the depot of the former operator Oakley Coaches near Oakley.

  • In 2001, Countywide Travel expanded throughout the Fleet area taking over operations from Tillingbourne Bus Company who ceased trading in April that year.

  • In October 2007, Countywide Travel sold the coach side of their business to Weavaway Travel, to concentrate on their bus operations, and relocated to Crondall. The company was renamed Fleet Buzz, and bus routes were given 70-series numbers. This saw the historic Reading to Aldershot route 12 to become the 72.

  • In 2008 and 2009, Fleet Buzz bought four brand new Optare Versas and four new Optare Solos.

  • In October 2011, Fleet Buzz was bought by Stagecoach South, but kept Fleet Buzz as a separate identity. Stagecoach as well as making many changes to the network, also introduced new Fleet Buzz branding for the 72 & 82 routes including characters and slogan lines for each of the four Versas:

    - "Sounds like a plan" says Stan

    - "Keeps the air sweet" thinks Pete

    - "Time to get busy" says Lizzie

    - "More money for the pot" says Dot

    Recognising which bus was which character just required remembering which number plate belonged to which.
    Stan: MX09 AOJ Pete: MX09 AOK
    Lizzie: MX58 KZC Dot: MX58 KZD

    The bee graphics that Stagecoach used for the characters were purchased from a royalty free image provider, then were further enhanced for the Fleet Buzz brand by their marketing team.

  • On 15 April 2013, a major network change was cast on Fleet Buzz, changing its identity.

    • Route 30/31:

      The most significant change came to Fleet Buzz’s flagship route, the 73.

      Stagecoach had run the route 10, previously numbered the 100 and before that the 200, for a number of years between Camberley and Basingstoke via Hartley Wintney and Hook. However, council budget cuts meant that the 73 was extended beyond Zebon Copse to partly replace the 10, covering Odiham, North Warnborough, Hook and Basingstoke.

      The Basingstoke to Farnborough section was renumbered as the route 30 (reviving an old Stagecoach route number) while the Farnborough to Frimley section became the 31 as a result of EU bus driving regulations.

      Frequencies remained at half-hourly for the Zebon Copse to Farnborough section, the Basingstoke to Zebon Copse and Farnborough to Frimley sections being hourly. Times were cleverly timed to allow one bus to operate a full-length (Farnborough to Basingstoke) and half-length (Frimley to Zebon Copse) service, as well as allowing connections between the 30 and 10 at Hook, so passengers from Camberley can still travel through to Basingstoke.

    • Route 82/42:

      Route 82 also saw major changes to its structure. In the southern end, the route was shortened to terminate Farnborough, thus concluding through running of 72/82 buses at Fleet. The Southwood area saw a new route, numbered 42, run as a circular service to and from Farnborough, as well as serving the new Queensgate estate near North Camp. In the northern end, the 82 was also curtailed to Yateley, apart from one or two return journeys to Reading.

    • Route 72:

      Route 70 was morphed into the 72, thus regaining the full route as it was before April 2011. As the majority of the route 82’s journeys stopped running north of Yateley, the 72 adopted half-running of services between Reading and Swallowfield, thus keeping the half-hourly frequency in that section.

    • Route 77:

      Routes 71 and 79 were withdrawn without replacement, although a Taxishare was introduced in the Farnham end. A new route, the 77, was introduced to retain a service around Calthorpe Park and Pondtail to Fleet, previously served by the 71.

    • Route 11/41:

      Following the collapse of the Countryliner bus company in October 2012, Stagecoach stepped in to operate the route 11, unofficially passing over to Fleet Buzz. Later, as Countryliner had a separate license for their Hampshire routes, the remainder of the company went bust in January 2013, so Stagecoach once again stepped in to operate the 41, this time passing to Fleet Buzz a week later. The April 2013 changes made the 11 and 41 officially part of the Fleet Buzz network.

  • During July and August 2014, extra Stagecoach liveried Solos and Darts entered the fleet and December saw the first of the Fleet Buzz buses being withdrawn, of which were the four Versas due to their expired five year lease.

  • On the 31st of December 2014, the Fleet Buzz website was updated to announce the end of Fleet Buzz, three years after the Stagecoach takeover.
    Click here to see an archive of the website before this change..

  • Starting from the 5th January 2015, route 72 replaced the 30 from Fleet up to Farnborough meaning it no longer went to Aldershot. The rest of the 30 between Fleet and Basingstoke was also withdrawn. Route 31 also saw it's end of light as well as the 77 except for one journey in the morning and evening. Route 11 got separated from Fleet Buzz, the 41 & 42 were given slightly shorter routes, the 82 was given an extra morning journey, and the 80 & 83 remained unchanged as school routes from Yateley.

  • The Fleet Buzz Crondall depot continued to operate the 41, 42, 72, 80, 82, 83 & 77 routes until the 23rd May 2015, when all operations changed to Stagecoach Aldershot. Some Fleet Buzz staff and buses moved to the Aldershot depot, other staff moved to the Basingstoke depot and other buses were either scrapped or transferred to other operaters.

  • On the 1st September 2015, Stagecoach changed the 72 to the 7 (the second renumbering of the route), the 82 to the 8 and reintroduced the 30 as the 10. The 7 again went to Aldershot from Reading, and the 10 went to Church Crookham from Farnborough instead of to Basingstoke and Zebon Copse.

  • On the 30th October 2016, Stagecoach re-routed the route 7 considerably in Fleet. The route circled around Elvetham Heath, traveled through Hitches Lane and Dukes Mead, out onto Reading Road North and down the highstreet. The route then turned onto Kings Road, then Aldershot Road, and back out onto Reading Road South towards Aldershot and vice versa. This resulted in the route no longer calling called at Fleet Station besides a few evening and morning journeys.

  • On the 16th May 2017, Fleet Buzz was dissolved from being a registered private limited company.

  • In 2018, due to council cuts, Stagecoach withdrew from operating the 7 & 8 beyond Hartley Wintney & Eversley into Reading. From April 16th, Reading Buses commercially took over the 7 between Reading and Fleet, later branding it as the Tiger using former Scarlet 9 Enviro 200 CNG buses.

  • On the 17th February 2019, Stagecoach cut the 10's frequency from every half hour to every hour between Fleet and Farnborough to free up resources for other routes due to the 10 being commercially run. At the same time, Stagecoach stopped running their half of the 7 further north beyond Elvetham Heath besides one weekday return journey for lunchtime shoppers.

    To recuperate losses, Stagecoach also introduced a merged short running route of the 7 and 10 that operated between the two route's full length hourly services. This saw buses do a full route on one route, travel back to Fleet as that route, swap over and finish as the other route, and then do the full length of that other route. This allowed less resources being used, whilst still providing a half hourly route between Church Crookham and Fleet, as well as providing such frequency for Elvetham Heath too.

  • On the 6th January 2020, Reading Buses cut back the Tiger 7's services beyond Spencer's Wood to enable the use of one vehicle. This resulted in Swallowfield, Riseley and beyond seeing a much reduced service with 2-4 hour gaps.

  • Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Stagecoach had to cut some journeys on the 10 in order to allow double deck operations to allow social distancing for students, whilst being able to provide duplicate operations for other routes. This saw an end to the short route merger of the 10 and 7, and ever since, the 10's timetable became quite infrequent, as well as a two hour frequency for the 7.

  • In August 2020, after about 4 years, the domain name Fleet Buzz used to use for their official website, fleetbuzz.co.uk, is home. It's had quite a journey from landing pages, to being listed for auction for triple figures on Sedo, to weird banking blogs, and to a Mercedes van dealer in Manhattan, since being let go by Stagecoach in 2015. Now it joins fleetbuzz.uk, and the former name countywidetravel.co.uk, here at home connected to this enthusiast site about Fleet Buzz.

  • On the 1st October 2021, the first Fleet Buzz vehicle to be preserved and fully restored since ownership in mid 2020, Dennis Dart 33306 (AE51 VFV), took to the roads, buzzing around Hampshire for the first time since leaving service in 2015. The inaugural outing, after passing it's MOT with flying colours, took place around Andover, Basingstoke, Hook, Odiham, Fleet and Farnborough, recreating parts of what was the Farnborough to Basingstoke route 30.

  • On the 9th October 2021, a Bluestar bus, Enviro 400MMC 1237 (HF68 DYB), was named after John Chadwick, at a naming ceremony held in his honour by former colleagues, friends and family in Southampton. John was the founder of Countywide Travel, and co-founder of Solent Blue Line, now known as Go-Ahead's Bluestar. John sadly passed away earlier in the year. Thank you for the yellow and black buses John. You've left quite the legacy.

  • On the 20th November 2021, 33306, spent the day fully recreating the route 30 between Basingstoke and Farnborough. It also, along with it's preservation buddy 524 (J524 GCD), recreated the Hampshire Bus Basingtoke to Brighton Hill route 59. Props to James at Southdown Preservation Group for bringing Stan back to life. And thanks for giving this site some free advertising too. 😏 Pictures of this and the previous outing of 33306 can be viewed here on this flickr album, with thanks to RootyMasters.

  • On the 17th January 2022, Reading Buses' half of the route 7 between Reading and Fleet was suspended indefinitely until the 14th March 2022, when it got partially reinstated for important journeys between Reading and Riseley.

  • On the 2nd April 2022, 33306 attended South East Bus Festival at Detling, it's first rally since entering preservation. There it met 33305 (AE51 VFX). 33305 never saw service with Fleet Buzz like 33306 and 33307 (AE51 VFU), but is one of the trio new to Cavalier Travel in 2001. Sadly 33307 wasn't also able to be there due to being scrapped back in 2016.

  • On the 11th April 2022, Stagecoach's half of the route 7 between Fleet and Aldershot got re-routed to a more direct route between Church Crookham and Aldershot. Additionally, Fleet Station became included in the route again.

  • On the 17th July 2022, 33306 attended it's second major event, Alton Bus Rally and Running Day. It lead a convoy to Alton from Basingstoke Railway Station with an ex Brighton & Hove Citaro bendibus (BL57 OXK), and Reading Buses' open-top Trident (Y524 ESC).

  • On the 5th September 2022, Reading Buses withdrew the Tiger 7 branded route, now being replaced by an extension of the route 600 park & ride service on a half hourly basis up to Spencer's Wood, and on an hourly basis up to Riseley. This brought an end to the horrible 2-4 hour gaps that Swallowfield and Riseley had experienced since 6th Jan 2020.

  • On the 7th September 2022, I made the decision to pass the Facebook group and page ownership to James Bell, the owner of 33306. This was a tough decision from running it since 2014, building things to where they are now, with many former bus drivers from throughout the years involved, and James preserving 33306, which for all we know may never of happened if it wasn't for the page, group and this site. This site will always stick around managed by myself though.

  • In late October 2022, Fleet Buzz's final vehicle, number 54 (later Stagecoach 47740) was withdrawn from service due to "a catastrophic engine failure", thus bringing a swift unfortunate end to the final 'new' Fleet Buzz vehicle.

  • On the 16th December 2022, 33306 spent the day recreating the Route 72 from Aldershot to Reading, then on the return trip made a diversion onto the former route 30 from Fleet Station before returning to Aldershot.

  • On the 31st March 2023, the 41 (which Fleet Buzz took over in 2013, later passing to Stagecoach) was following the withdrawal of Hampshire County Council funding, with no direct replacement, bringing to an end of the colourful history of the 41, which its roots began in 1997 from Tillingbourne (the same company Fleet Buzz took over several routes upon its demise in 2001).

  • In May 2023, Aldershot Bus Station was replaced by a new station forefront. This marks an end of an era for a notable destination that has been frequented by Fleet Buzz for most of it's existence.

    James, took 33306 on an impromptu outing on the 3rd May 2023 to Aldershot, a few days before the bus station's closure on the 6th, to recreate a scene at the station that would have occurred a lot a decade prior.

  • As of 3rd June 2023, the domain I had used since 2014, fleetbuzz.uk, I no longer own. Since owning the official domains fleetbuzz.co.uk and countywidetravel.co.uk, that domain served a redundant purpose with everything on the internet that did link to the domain updated to the official one. I came to the decision to let it go back in August. Again, the two official .co.uk domains aren't going anywhere though. They're keepers, but fleetbuzz.uk, is now not owned by me.

  • On the 11th June 2023, 33306 visited Barry Island in South Wales to attend the Barry Festival of Transport.


The above information on this page is a mixture of my own personal gathered information about Fleet Buzz from various bus drivers, enthusiasts, and also includes information gathered from Bus Zone, Wikipedia, UK Transport Wiki and Hants & Surrey Bus Blog.