Southern Vectis route 6

Southern Vectis route 6 is a bus service operated on the Isle of Wight by Southern Vectis between Newport, Blackgang and Ventnor. It also runs via Carisbrooke, Chillerton, Chale Green, Chale, Niton, St Lawrence and Whitwell. Five journeys are made in each direction Monday to Saturday, with four on Sundays. Single-decker buses are normally used to operate the route.

There are several points of tourist interest on the route, including Ventnor Botanic Garden, Blackgang Chine and Carisbrooke Castle.

Route 6 before April 2006
The actual route taken by buses on service 6 has not changed in some time. The original route was created by a merging of various other routes, but the current route is remarkably similar to the former route 10 that ran in the 1960s. The route prior to 2006 was from Newport to Chillerton, Chale and Blackgang, then to Niton. Within Niton, some buses also served the Buddle Inn, then all buses would continue to Whitwell and Ventnor.

Route 6 was created in 1996, by renumbering Southern Vectis route 16, which ran from Ryde to Newport via Blackgang and Ventnor. Until the late 1980s this route ran between Ryde and Blackgang, mainly along the A3055 road, but at that time merged with Southern Vectis route 19/19B (previously 10/10B) from Ventnor to Blackgang, Chale, Chillerton and Newport. Route 19 ran via Whitwell and route 19B via St. Lawrence, as did route 16. The overlapping Ventnor to Blackgang section on route 19B had for some years beforehand been run in tandem with route 16, with journeys shown on the route 19 timetable, but numbered as route 16. Once the merger of the two routes took place, journeys via Whitwell were numbered 16A and later 16B. After the renumbering all route 6 journeys served Whitwell, with routes 7/7A using the St Lawrence road. A short section of the former route 16 service was revived between 2004 and 2010 as Wightbus route 16.

Many journeys on this route operated as through buses from Newport to Ryde via Sandown Bay. Initially these were numbered 6 throughout, but from 2001 all these were renumbered as services 7, 7A and 7B between Ventnor and Ryde, rather than only those proceeding along the Military Road to Freshwater. Because of this many buses on the route operated as service 6 only from Newport to Chale, where they would change number, thus resuming the arrangement previously used between services 16 and 19 some years before. In 2001 only service 7A used the St Lawrence route and services 6 & 7 the Whitwell route; the following year the Undercliff Drive was closed to buses, as it has been ever since.

The route has at various times included a variation whereby buses would run from Newport to Niton via Rookley before continuing towards Ventnor. This variation was initially flagged separately as the 6A, but since the 2006 re-organisation of services, all suffix letters have been dropped, and route variations noted via the destination display. This route has also been numbered as a distinct service, most recently as 31, but also as 18, 11 and 23 in past decades. In the last two years, this variation was discontinued, and all buses take the primary route via Chillerton and Chale.

Current Route
The current revision of route 6 began operation by 1 April 2006 at the point of Southern Vectis' network change. As such, Newport Bus Station was being redeveloped, so along with most of Southern Vectis' other routes, it operated from Newport's temporary Litten Park bus stands. At this point, the frequency was increased from broadly one bus every two hours, to an hourly service. This was possible due to the withdrawal of all services on the Island Explorer route.

From 5 September 2010 due to reductions in payments to Southern Vectis from the Isle of Wight Council for supporting rural bus services, Southern Vectis planned to completely axe all services on the route. The Isle of Wight Council then stepped in to support a broadly two-hour frequency.

From the 5th September 2011,with the closure of Wightbus and the introduction of the Community Bus Partnership it was announced that Route 6 would be part of the scheme with the service being run by volunteer drivers and at other times by normal drivers. This allowed route frequency to be doubled, with a service restored to St Lawrence for half of the journeys, with the remainder running via Whitwell.

Route
The main route as it stands today retains virtually all of the pre-2006 route. Services to Niton's Buddle Inn were abandoned from the timetable change on 16 March 2008, but the core route from Newport to Ventnor continued with virtually no difference. An extension of the service from Ventnor to St Lawrence was trialled in 2007, but was withdrawn between St Lawrence and the Ventnor Botanic Garden.

The route is therefore from Newport to Chale via Carisbrooke, Gatcombe and Chillerton, then to Niton and through eitherSt Lawrence and Ventnor Botanic Gardens or Whitwell to Ventnor town centre.

Services
Five journeys are provided in each direction Monday to Saturday and four on Sundays. There is no evening service.