West Berkshire Community Connect: Northwest Downlands and Newbury

This service connects the Northwest Downlands area of West Berkshire with Newbury Town Centre, Newbury Railway Station and West Berkshire Community Hospital. 

From 1 September 2025 you also be able to connect with Newbury Town Centre from A339 Andover Road between the district boundary with Hampshire at Wash Water and junction with Buckingham Road, this zone will be known as South Newbury. 

Northwest Downlands Zone

If you book a journey starting in the Northwest Downlands zone, you may travel either into the Central Newbury zone (and from the 1st September 2025 into the South Newbury zone), or to another location in the Northwest Downlands zone.
 

The Northwest Downlands zone includes:

• Beedon
• Boxford
• Brightwalton
• Catmore
• Chaddleworth
• Chieveley
• Donnington
• Downend
• Farnborough
• Fawley
• Leckhampstead
• North Heath
• Peasemore
• Snelsmore
• Winterbourne

Central Newbury Zone 

If you book a journey starting in the Central Newbury zone, you may travel to anywhere in the Northwest Downlands zone From the 1 September 2025, you'll also be able to travel into the South Newbury zone.

You cannot book Community Connect to travel between two locations within Central Newbury. This is because there are already other bus services in Newbury. You can see all of our services and timetables on our journey planning pages.

The Newbury zone includes:

• Cheap Street
• Market Street
• Monks Lane
• Newbury College
• Newbury Railway Station
• Newbury Retail Park, Pinchington Lane 
• Newbury Wharf Bus Station 
• Park House School
• Park Way
• St Bartholomew's School
• Tesco, Pinchington Lane 
• West Berkshire Community Hospital

South Newbury zone (available from 1 September 2025) 

If you book a journey in the South Newbury zone, you will be able to travel anywhere along that corridor and into the Central Newbury and Northwest Downlands zones.

The South Newbury zone includes 

• Andover Road
• Wash Water 

A leaflet about the service is also available:  West Berkshire Community Connect Northwest Downlands leaflet (from 1 September 2025) [5MB] .

How to book

Find information on how to book and how much the service costs on our West Berkshire Community Connect page

For help using the app, visit our using the app page.

For more advice and answers to frequently asked questions, visit our help and guidance page.

Travelling further afield

By bus 

At Newbury Wharf Bus Station there are timetabled bus routes available to Wash Common, Greenham, Tesco (Pinchington Lane), Newbury Racecourse, Thatcham, Reading, Basingstoke, Didcot, Hungerford, Kintbury, Lambourn, East/West Ilsley.

By train

The Northwest Downlands service can take you to Newbury Railway Station where you can catch GWR (Great Western Railway) services to Reading, London Paddington, Thatcham, Hungerford, Bedwyn and the West Country.

Travel to West Berkshire Community Hospital 

If you have an appointment at West Berkshire Community Hospital, you can book Community Connect to take you directly to there.

Things to do

Our Bus Services for Days Out in West Berkshire pages have information on how to explore West Berkshire by bus. This includes the Northwest Downlands and Newbury service.

Snelsmore Common and Donnington Castle are in within the Northwest Downlands zone.

There are many walking routes within the Northwest Downlands Zone.

Northcroft Leisure Centre is within the Newbury zone.

Timetabled bus services: Community Connect A (CCA)

As well as the bookable service, we also run a timetabled service between Brightwalton and Newbury.

From the 1st September 2025 this service will extend to serve Wash Water and Andover Road. 

The service is known as CCA (Community Connect A). It operates one journey into Newbury in the morning and a return journey to some Northwest Downlands villages and Wash Water/Andover Road in the afternoon. 

Students for all schools and college can use the 7.30am service from Brightwalton to Newbury. From 1 September 2025, after serving the schools and college, the service will extend to Wash Water before returning to Newbury Wharf. 

As this is a public bus, these services may be used by any member of the public, not just students. You do not need to book to use this service, but you won't be able to track the journeys within the passenger app. 

Community Connect A (CCA) operates Monday to Friday all year round, but not on public holidays. 

A leaflet about the Community Connect A bus service is also available:  West Berkshire Community Connect A Bus Service (from 1 September 2025) [2MB]

The current CCA timetable can also be found Journey Planning and Timetables webpage. 

Legal

You can read our terms and conditions here.

You can read our privacy notice here.

If you have any questions about this service, please contact West Berkshire Council by emailing Community Connect or call 01635 519650.

West Berkshire Community Connect On-Demand Transport Services has been made possible by funding from HM Government, given to West Berkshire Council after submission of a Bus Services Improvement Plan 2021 [3MB] in October 2021.