Suffolk County Council West Suffolk bus map - April 1981

This map of bus services in West Suffolk appeared in the Suffolk County Council produced ‘West Suffolk Public Transport Guide’ dated April 1981. The foreword of the book reads that it ‘covers for the first time ALL bus, coach and train services’. It was around this time that the County Councils were expected to provide comprehensive transport information to the public within their area of responsibility.

Despite East Anglia being a stronghold of two of the large nationalised bus operating companies (Eastern Counties Omnibus Company in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk and the Eastern National Omnibus Company in Essex), there has always been quite a significant number of smaller businesses providing a bus services – some perhaps on market days only but others more often and, on some routes, exclusively. The panel on the right of the map lists quite a few, some that are still with us today.