Southern Vectis route 12

Southern Vectis route 12 is a bus service operated by Southern Vectis between Newport and Totland via Shorwell, Brighstone and Freshwater.

West Wight Route
Route no 12 has a long history in the West Wight. It was one of Southern Vectis's original route numberings, introduced in June 1933, when it ran from Alum Bay to Newport via Chessell and Brighstone. Later, for many years, prior to re-modelling of routes in 1985, it was the principal service to Newport, running via Yarmouth and Shalfleet and thence to Sandown via Shanklin. The route via Brighstone was numbered 29 in that period, running via Chessell, with a seasonal variant 28 via Compton. Latterly no. 28 via Compton became the primary year-round route.

From 1985 route 7 became the main West Wight route, with the Freshwater via Brighstone route numbered variously, but most often as route 7B. However, between 1996 and 2001 it was numbered route 12, and this numbering has been revived through the changes of autumn 2010. In 2001 the 7B numbering was resumed. In 2006 the suffix letter was dropped, and destination boards only signalled the variation in route.

On 5 September 2010, the route number 12 was revived in the West Wight area, with the southern branch of route 7 being axed and replaced by a broadly 2 hourly service numbered 12 along the same route.

It is considered likely that at least some of the section along the Military Road may have to be re-routed at some point due to coastal erosion. There are suggestions that when the road is fully breached a new bypass may be built further inland, but it is not certain this would happen. In the absence of such a new road, it is likely Service 12 would revert to its 1933 route via Chessell.

Sandown—Ryde
Prior to 2001, buses between Sandown and Ryde via Bembridge had run as service 1. From 2001, buses between Sandown and Bembridge were withdrawn from that service and replaced by route 2, which was extended from Sandown to Ryde via Bembridge. It ran via Nettlestone, and route 1 was diverted via Tesco and Oakfield. However, from the new timetable on 19 May 2002, route 2 was cut back to Sandown, leaving the places between Bembridge (which was still served by route 1) and Sandown, and St Helens and Nettlestone, without a regular bus service. Therefore, from that date, route 12 was introduced, running between Ryde, Nettlestone, St Helens, Bembridge and Sandown, with a roughly hourly service off peak. By the 13 April 2003 timetable, the service had thinned a little, with more slight reductions and the withdrawal of the Sunday journeys from the winter timetable 2 November 2003. The journeys removed were the open-top connectors to the Sandown Bay Tour. These journeys were reintroduced from 4 April 2004, along with some Sunday buses, for the 2004 Summer season. The same thing happened again over the Winter and Summer periods of the 2004/5 timetable, although some journeys were restricted to school days only.

The route survived the Southern Vectis network change of April 2006 virtually unchanged. However the school only journeys were removed from the timetable, and from then the route ran with two journeys from Ryde to Sandown and five in the other direction, two of which only started at Bembridge. One journey ran via Seaview to supplement route 4, which was the main route through that area at the time. From 1 October 2006, the Sandown to Ryde journeys were revised, with only four running, one of which started in Bembridge.

Route 14 (from Ryde) was extended from Tesco to Bembridge from the same date (replacing the selected route 9 journeys that continued from Ryde to Bembridge), and further improvements to the 14 from 31 December 2006 limited route 12 two one morning journey in each direction from that date. This continued throughout the summer 2007 timetable, but route 12 was finally withdrawn at the start of the winter timetable on 30 September 2007. The last day was 29 September.

Between its last day of operation and 19 December 2009 sections of the old route were served by routes 16 (between Ryde and Bembridge) and 10 (between St Helens and Sandown), however this didn't provide a direct link to Ryde from Yaverland, or a direct link to Sandown from Nettlestone that the previous route had. From 20 December 2009 changes to route 8 from Sandown were made, restoring these connections. Certain journeys on this route were run using open-top buses in the summer.