Nottingham City Transport to Operate Nottingham to Newark Service from February 2026

Nottingham City Transport (NCT) will take over from Central Connect East Midlands as the operator of service 90 between Nottingham, Bingham, Farndon, Newark, Balderton and Fernwood from 1st February 2026. 

Pathfinder 90 will maintain a seven day a week service across the core route, running hourly during the Monday to Saturday daytime and every 2 hours in the evenings and on Sunday daytimes.

Since announcing that we’re taking over the 90 from 1st February 2026, we’ve been encouraged by the support and interest we’ve received from customers.  We’ve reviewed the comments we’ve received about our timetable and are delighted to share that we can make some changes to accommodate your feedback - see below for more details.

Route

We’ll be operating a standard route every day between Fernwood, Newark, Farndon, Coneygrey, A46, Bingham, Radcliffe Road, Trent Bridge, Nottingham Station and Nottingham City Centre.

One early morning bus towards Newark won't serve Coneygrey Spinney or Farndon Village. These buses will show 90X. 

Our 90 won’t serve Cropwell Bishop or Cropwell Butler in the evenings or on Sundays. The number of people using the buses at these times is too low to keep running and developer funding towards the costs of these journeys has ended.

Newark

In Newark, we’ll follow the same route as the 90, with Newark Bus Station the main stopping point for buses. The Bus Station is a short walk from the Town Centre.

Farndon

In Farndon, we’ll follow the same route as the 90 along Long Lane, Marsh Lane and Main Street. We won’t be serving California Road or The Copse. One early morning bus towards Newark won't serve Coneygrey Spinney or Farndon Village. These buses will show 90X. 

Bingham

In Bingham, our main stop for the Market Place will remain on Market Street. We’ll use Nottingham Road rather than Tithby Road when travelling to/from Nottingham. Tithby Road will continue to be served by Nottinghamshire County Council funded service 833, which is operated by Centrebus. We’ll continue to serve Lidl, Bingham Leisure Centre and serve Dunsmore Avenue.

Radcliffe Road, A52

Our main stop for Radcliffe will be on the A52 at Cropwell Road. Between here and Gamston Lock, we’ll speed your journey up by running non-stop along the A52. 

Nottingham City Centre

We’ll serve Nottingham Station and buses will continue to terminate in the Old Market Square on Beastmarket Hill. We won’t be stopping in Broad Marsh Bus Station. The nearest stop for buses towards Newark are just outside on Canal Street.

Times

We’ll be running seven days a week, with buses:

• Hourly Monday to Saturday daytimes
• Two hourly Sunday daytime
• Two hourly Monday to Saturday evening, with the last bus back from Nottingham at 22:30 on Saturdays

We’ve reviewed the comments we’ve received about our timetable and are delighted to share that we can make some changes to accommodate your feedback. These include:

• The 08:00 from Nottingham (daily) will depart 20 minutes earlier, arriving into Newark for 08:47. This change is in response to concerns about students and workers arriving for 9am starts.
• There will now be a 17:10 from Newark to Nottingham on Mondays to Saturdays, to provide a better departure time for those finishing at around 5pm.
• Evening journeys will generally run around 10 minutes later to give a little more time to reach the bus following the end of shows/performances
• All evening buses from Newark will operate through Farndon (rather than along Fosse Road) and serve the main Eden Hall stop and Coneygrey

Click to view the full timetable here.

A number of people have raised concerns about the last bus from Nottingham being earlier on our timetable on Mondays to Fridays.

We worked with Central Connect prior to our announcement that we would be taking over the 90 service to review information showing the number of people using each journey.  This information showed the number of people travelling on the 21:10 and 22:40 departures from Nottingham on weekdays was too low to cover the costs of running them. Central Connect had previously received some funding for these journeys, which is no longer available. 

To reassure ourselves, we’ve undertaken monitoring at the Nottingham Station stop on several nights to count the number of people on the last two buses when it leaves Nottingham. The number of people we counted averaged just 4 people across both journeys. This level of usage is just not high enough to cover the basic operating cost for later services, and we can’t run them just for occasional late night football matches.

The information we received from Central Connect and our own observations show the last bus on a Saturday is popular, which is why we’ve retained it. We will now run it 10 minutes later to give people more time to reach the bus from shows/performances in Nottingham.

Fares

NCT is part of the National Fare Cap scheme, which means the maximum single fare will be £3.

We’ll be offering single fares within Bingham for £2 (£1.70 Under 19) and within Newark (including Farndon and Fernwood) for £2.50 (£2.00 Under 19).

We accept cash (exact fare, no change given) and contactless payments and you can buy tickets through the NCTX Buses app too. Concessionary passes are accepted too – after 09:30 weekdays and all day at the weekends. 

If you make more than one journey in a day, buying an all day ticket or our Easyrider Further season ticket offers travel at discounted rates. We’re also part of the Newark All Rounder scheme, offering unlimited travel across all bus operators in Newark.

* With valid proof of age or student ID through the NCTX Buses app only 

The following season tickets are available on our Easyrider Further cards and the NCTX Buses app for journeys that start or finish between Gamston Lock and Fernwood:
 

* With valid proof of age or student ID

If you're only travelling in the Newark area (Farndon to Fernwood inclusive), the following tickets are also available through the NCTX Buses app:

* With valid proof of age or student ID

If you already have a long term Central Connect season ticket, you will be able to exchange them to an NCT equivalent ticket to use on our 90 service. Final details about how this will work will be published soon.