New 84B route will provide hourly bus service from Potters Bar to Barnet connecting hospitals and stations

A route and timetable have now been published for a replacement 84-bus service between Potters Bar and High Barnet, which is due to start on Monday 4 September, the day many schools go back.

Galleon Travel will operate an hourly service from Monday to Saturday offering a direct service between Potters Bar railway station, Potters Bar Community Hospital, Barnet High Street, High Barnet tube station and Barnet Hospital.

Hertsmere Borough Council promised in the May elections to finance the reinstatement of this missing section after Metroline withdrew from the 84 New Barnet to St Albans bus route last year.

Final approval of the likely expenditure, thought to be in excess of £100,000, is expected to be given at an extraordinary council cabinet meeting on Wednesday 23 August.  

The first bus from Potters Bar to Barnet – to be numbered the 84B – will depart from the railway station at 6.05 am.

It will call at Potters Bar bus garage and then follow the A1000 Great North Road south through Hadley to Barnet, stop at the tube station, loop around Underhill, and then proceed back up Barnet Hill and along Wood Street to Barnet Hospital.

This same bus will become the 6.35 am departure from Barnet Hospital. It will proceed along Wood Street, down Barnet Hill, and loop around Underhill and Westcombe Drive before heading back up Barnet Hill and through the town centre – with stops in the High Street (see above) – before heading north to Hadley Highstone, reaching Potters Bar by 7am to become the 7.05am departure.

After the morning rush hour, the service will continue hourly, departing from Potters Bar at 9.25 am, with the last departure at 18.35. The service will be hourly from Barnet Hospital from 9.55 am with the final departure from the hospital at 19.10.

Campaigners for the reinstatement of the 84 have hailed Hertsmere’s initiative and said the new service will be especially welcomed by patients heading to Barnet Hospital or the Potters Bar Community Hospital and by local school pupils.

There has been some disappointment that the service does not reconnect with New Barnet railway station – as was the case with Metroline’s 84 service – but the 84B will eliminate lengthy journeys which have necessitated passengers needing to go via Cockfosters using the 307 and 298 services.

Galleon Travel has been awarded a 12-month contract under a process coordinated by Hertfordshire County Council which funds the section of the 84-route between Potters Bar and St Albans, and which is operated by Sullivan Buses.

Apparently, no operator was prepared to run a late evening or Sunday service between Potters Bar and Barnet.

Hertsmere’s funding of the 84B, which has been provided from community infrastructure income, is only for a limited period. The route will either need to become self-sustaining or require extra funding from Transport for London.

Theresa Villiers, the Chipping Barnet MP, who backed the campaign for the restoration of a bus service from High Barnet to Potters Bar, has welcomed Hertsmere’s initiative.

She hopes that extra support might be made available in the future through the government bus service improvement grant paid to Hertfordshire County Council or by Transport for London.

When Metroline withdrew the 84-service last year, TfL said it was not in a position to finance a replacement but would continue to monitor its routes serving Barnet and would make changes if there was the demand.