There has been some local concern about the withdrawal of the H1 bus service from 19 December. County councillor Janet Whitehouse and others raised concerns about what bus services would be available over the Christmas period before the launch of the revised Service 55 on 4 January.

The latest Bus Passenger News reports that:

From 19 December 2009, Essex County Council will fund a Saturday service operating to the current H1 Saturday route and timetable. This service will be numbered Service H1 and will be operated by Regal Busways.

Between 21 – 24 December and 29 – 31 December Essex County Council will fund a temporary replacement service on Service 55 operated by Travel With Hunny (for a timetable leaflet contact the Essex Traffic Control Centre on 0845 6000 110). Please note that this service will operate to a different route in Loughton to the current service H1. Contact Travel With Hunny on 01708 732604 for full details.

From 4 January 2010 Service 55 will be operated commercially Mondays to Fridays by Travel with Hunny to a revised route and timetable serving Loughton.

Timetable details should be available via this link in due course. This newspaper article gives some background details.