Morning, Surbiton. Yesterday I asked whether anyone could put a date on the 281 quietly changing route. Four of you wrote back with evidence — including a Street View image of the old stop and a timetable app that hadn't caught up yet. That's the lead, and it's yours, not mine. Also today: the Post Office has a real closing date at last, and it is not the one going round. And there are free bike repairs in the borough tomorrow, with free security marking alongside them.
You dated the 281 — and one of you found the old stop still standing
Yesterday I said that between five hundred of us we could probably date this better than anyone had bothered to publish it. That took less than a day.
Daniel went to Google Street View and found the stop itself, photographed in May 2025. Here it is.
Stop UA, Penrhyn Road, May 2025. The 281 is second along the top row.
Google Street View, found by Daniel
That is not a generic photograph of a bus stop. It is a specific one, and it carries the same label TfL uses: stop UA, pointing towards Hook, Thames Ditton and Tolworth. So I looked up stop UA in TfL's live data this morning. It lists six services — the 71, 418, 671, K2, K3 and N65. The 281 is not among them. Same stop, same letter, fifteen months apart, and the route is gone off the plate.
One thing the picture shows that I should be straight about: the 281 isn't the only difference. The 406, the 514 and the 515 are on that May 2025 plate and aren't on today's record either, while the 671 has arrived since. So this looks like more than a single route being quietly moved — which makes the silence around it stranger, not less strange.
Sue found something sharper. A third-party timetable app that hadn't updated yet was still showing the 281 running between the Crown Court and the university buildings on Penrhyn Road. An app lagging behind doesn't give us the exact day it changed — but stale data only looks like that when the change is recent.
Vanessa rode the 281 along Penrhyn Road from 1990 until around 2015 or 2016 — not a date for the change, but a long, firm memory that the route genuinely ran that way for decades.
And then the best letter I have had since starting this. Danni wrote in on behalf of her eleven-year-old son Oliver, who knows the local bus network properly and for whom the 281 is a favourite. She showed him yesterday's issue. He checked Google Maps and TfL himself, agreed the alignment is new, was “very surprised” by the new stop names, went looking for an official notification, and — like me, like Tim — found nothing. Danni suspects he will be keen to ride the 281 and investigate in person as soon as he gets the chance. Oliver, I will print whatever you find.
Sue also raised the one theory I hadn't tested: that the route might be on a summer diversion to speed it up, something she was told when she moved here. So I went and checked this morning. I can find no live roadworks on Penrhyn Road to divert around. The only Penrhyn Road permit in the register I can read — a council lane closure pencilled in for 5 to 9 August — is marked cancelled, and the gas job that ran there in late July finished on the 29th. And the 71, the 418, the 671, the K2, the K3 and the N65 are all still serving Kingston University / County Hall this morning. A summer diversion that moves one route off a road and leaves six others on it isn't much of a diversion.
What I still cannot give you is the thing that ought to exist: a date, and an announcement. What I can now give you is a photograph of the stop with the 281 on it, and TfL's own current record of the same stop without it. That is not a press release. It is, however, considerably more than anyone official has offered, and it is more than enough to say plainly that Tim was not imagining it and neither was Oliver.
If it's your bus: the 71 still runs Penrhyn Road and still serves the campus.
Route and stop records from TfL's live data and the cancelled Penrhyn Road permit from the Department for Transport's Street Manager register, both checked this morning · the rest from four readers who replied yesterday
The Post Office closes on Saturday 3 October at 4pm — and no, it isn't the 23rd
Margaret wrote in with two questions: what date is the Post Office actually closing, and is the nearest one after that really New Malden. I promised her an answer this week. Here it is, and it comes from Post Office Ltd rather than from anybody's reporting.
Their own letter, dated Wednesday 29 July, says the branch at 2–3 Victoria Road will close on Saturday 3 October 2026 at 4pm. It also says why the date moved: they had previously advised Sunday 4 October, and it has been brought forward slightly.
Where 23 October came from, since it is everywhere. The Post Office's consultation page for this branch shows “Closes 23 Oct 2026” in large type near the top. That is the closing date of the consultation notice, not of the shop. The page says so itself, in a line directly above it that is very easy to skim past. I nearly printed the wrong date off the back of it, and I suspect I am not the only one.
The cause is not the Post Office pulling out. The branch sits inside Morrisons Daily, and Morrisons is closing that store, which is why the letter is headed “unplanned closure”. Post Office Ltd have been reported as saying they have already had “many expressions of interest” from potential new operators and want to open a replacement branch as soon as possible, with the vacancy advertised on runapostoffice.co.uk. That part comes from reporting rather than from the letter in front of me.
Margaret, on your second question: no, not New Malden. The letter names two alternatives, and the nearer one is a good deal more useful than I expected:
Alexandra Drive — 104 Alexandra Drive, KT5 9AG. About 1.4 miles. Open 8am to 8pm Monday to Saturday, and 9am to 6pm on Sunday. Level access at the entrance.
Thames Ditton — inside Budgens, 31 High Street, KT7 0SD. About 1.5 miles. 9am to 5pm weekdays, 9am to 1pm Saturday, closed Sunday. Level access at the entrance.
Alexandra Drive is the one to write down. Seven days a week and open until eight is better cover than the branch we are losing. Both are listed as offering similar services, but each has a short list of things it does not do — passport check and send and dollar travel money at both, plus vehicle tax at Alexandra Drive. If that's what you need, ring ahead.
Closure date, alternative branches and opening hours from Post Office Ltd's “Branch Unplanned Closure” updated information letter for Surbiton KT6 4JU, dated 29 July 2026, downloaded and read in full this morning from the Post Office's own consultation site · the expressions-of-interest line from South West Londoner, 21 July
Free bike repairs tomorrow, and free security marking with them
Today is Cycle to Work Day, which falls on the first Thursday of August. The Full Cycle Community Bike Project wrote in to say where their volunteers will be over the next few weeks, and it is worth passing on.
Tomorrow, Friday 7 August, 11am to 2pm — free basic bike repairs at the RBKares Wellbeing Day, Queen Mary Hall, Cambridge Gardens. Norbiton's local police team will be there alongside them doing free BikeRegister security marking. The wider event is a one-stop-shop for mental, physical and financial health support.
Wednesday 12 August, 11am to 3pm — the council's Active for All Sports Day at Chessington Sports Centre. Free, with activities for children and families, inclusive and disability sport, and sessions aimed at getting older adults more active locally.
Sunday 20 September, 10.45am to 12.30pm — Kingston Cycling Campaign's family-friendly ride from Beverley Park, part of the London Cycling Festival and pitched at all ages and abilities.
Details supplied directly by Full Cycle, who emailed yesterday. Thank you — this is exactly the sort of thing that never reaches the official listings in time.
Berrylands station: I gave you a date I shouldn't have
We have said in this newsletter that Berrylands reopens in late September, around the 19th. I went back to the primary sources this morning to nail it down, and the 19th is not in any of them.
National Rail's own Surbiton station page says that from Monday 11 May 2026 “until the end of September 2026”, trains will not call at Berrylands. Network Rail's project page for the upgrade gives the closure as 11 May to late September and the reopening as, simply, “Late September 2026” — and puts its whole key-dates table under the heading “subject to change”.
So: late September, no firmer than that, and nobody official has committed to a day. If you have been planning around the 19th because I said so, please don't. I'll bring you a date the moment one genuinely exists.
The K3 is back, as promised. The Hare Lane diversion at Claygate finished last night. This morning every route I watch is on a Good Service, with no disruption logged against any of them: the K1, K2, K3, K4, 71, 281, 406, 418 and 465.
Gone today. The emergency closure on Hollyfield Road ends, as does Thames Water's footway job on Berrylands and the two-way signals on Upper Brighton Road. The emergency Thames Water signals on Leatherhead Road at Merritt Gardens come off late tonight.
Gone tomorrow — and this is the big one. The Hook Road closure permit that has been running since 1 June expires. TfL's road feed already reports all lanes open at the Vale Road North junction “following the completion of urgent UKPN repairs to electrical fault”, with that entry due to close tomorrow evening. Also finishing: the gully works at Tolworth Close on Ewell Road, the lane closure on King Charles Road, and the council's six-week job on Elmbridge Avenue.
But don't call Hook Road finished. Signals have outlived their permits there more than once this summer. And the next Hook Road permit — 10 August to 15 September — is still only marked submitted this morning, not granted, and is not a full closure.
Running now. Surbiton Road and Langley Avenue, both until Monday. Tolworth Road until the 14th. Elmbridge Avenue again, with Thames Water there until Monday and a council job until the 18th — that street cannot catch a break. And the long ones grind on: the Ewell Road cycle scheme, with Ditton Road and Kingsdowne Road, all the way to 25 January.
Today, but treat it as a maybe. Two-way signals on St Mark's Hill for Thames Water were pencilled in for today, but the permit is still showing only as submitted this morning. Possible, not certain.
Next week on Ewell Road, the dates have moved. Thames Water asked for multi-way signals on the 11th and 12th, were refused, and now hold a permit for Wednesday 12th to Thursday 13th instead. If you saw the earlier dates somewhere, they're out of date.
And on the A243 towards Chessington, the two-way lights at the Bridge Road junction stay until Sunday evening.
Berrylands stays closed with buses replacing trains, to the end of September. See above — that's as precise as anyone official will be.
The weekend, and an honest gap. I have seen it reported that buses replace trains between Surbiton and Hampton Court on Sunday, and between Surbiton and Effingham Junction on Saturday. I could not confirm either this morning — South Western Railway's engineering-works pages were returning errors every way I approached them. So I'm telling you it's likely rather than certain: if you're heading that way at the weekend, check before you travel rather than take my word for it. I'd rather flag the gap than fill it in.
Also this week
Chessington World of Adventures wants to install electric car chargers. The park has applied to Kingston Council for permission to put in eight vehicle charging stations, along with a substation, a feeding pillar and underground cabling. The council has not yet made a decision.
Reported by Tilly O'Brien, Kingston Nub News, 5 August · the full application is on the council's planning portal
Last days of the croquet. The MacRobertson Shield's final round is still being played at Surbiton Croquet Club on Alexandra Drive and runs through to Sunday. Play from 9.30am, free to walk in, nothing to book, cash bar, and members who will happily explain what is going on. This is the closing week of a world championship happening on a residential street, and it costs nothing.
Diary note. The next Surbiton Farmers' Market is due on Saturday 15 August.
⛅ Weather. A grey, flat one today — cloudy, dry, topping out around 21°C and down to about 13°C tonight. Tomorrow is brighter and warmer at roughly 24°C, again dry.
Then the weekend climbs hard: around 27°C on Saturday and 31°C on Sunday. The amber heat-health alert that covered London earlier this week ran from the 3rd to the 5th and has ended, and I can see no new one this morning — but with Sunday looking like that, it is worth checking again before you plan anything strenuous.
Yesterday's issue asked you for something I couldn't get on my own, and four of you delivered inside a day — a Street View image, a lagging app, a twenty-five-year memory and an eleven-year-old with a better grasp of the bus network than the people who changed it. That is the whole idea of this thing working properly.
Keep it coming. If you spot roadworks that aren't on any list, a shop with paper on the windows, or a bus doing something it didn't used to — just hit reply.
See you tomorrow,
Mike
Surbiton Daily · a short email every morning about our bit of south west London. Written for the 528 of us who read it. Got something for tomorrow? Reply to this email — every reply reaches a person, not a robot.