Epping Forest District - Transport

Transport

The district can be traced on maps by reference to the M25 motorway and the M11 motorway which form a junction at Theydon Garnon. From the junction the towns of Loughton and Buckhurst Hill are south-west, Chigwell is south, Waltham Abbey is west, Epping north-west, and Ongar north-east.

Rail transport in the district is provided by the Central Line of the London Underground and the West Anglia Main Line. Further National Rail stations are available at Harlow, Sawbridgeworth and Bishop's Stortford, along the District's boundary.

The stations in the district are:

• Buckhurst Hill tube station
• Chigwell tube station
• Debden tube station
• Epping tube station
• Grange Hill tube station (on the boundary with Redbridge)
• Loughton tube station
• Roding Valley tube station (on the boundary with Redbridge)
• Theydon Bois tube station

• Roydon - The only National Rail station within the district. Sawbridgeworth railway station is immediately adjacent to the Epping Forest boundary.

Unlike the section of the Metropolitan Line outside Greater London, where a special fare structure exists, each station in the district is in one of Travelcard zones 4, 5 or 6. This is because Essex County Council have agreed a subsidy scheme with Transport for London similar to that with the London boroughs, whilst neither Hertfordshire County Council nor Buckinghamshire County Council have done so. From 2 January 2007, the stations on the Hainault Loop in the southern part of the district (Roding Valley, Chigwell and Grange Hill), which had previously been in Travelcard zone 5, were reallocated to zone 4 in an attempt by Transport for London to encourage greater use of this section of the line. Until November 2006, services to Roding Valley, Chigwell and Grange Hill stopped at around 8pm but since then the service has run to around midnight. However, the service to these stations is still not as frequent as to those wholly within Greater London or to those between Buckhurst Hill and Epping.

The Central Line used to have an extension from Epping to Ongar, with intermediate stations at North Weald and Blake Hall. However, patronage on this line was never high, and it ceased to be a part of the London Underground when it closed in 1994, with the remote Blake Hall station having closed 13 years earlier, in 1981, reputedly having only served six passengers a day. The line was nonetheless reopened in 2004 as the Epping Ongar Railway, which runs heritage services on Sundays and bank holidays.

North Weald Airfield, a Battle of Britain airfield, is owned by the District Council, and has a long runway allowing use of jet aircraft. Stapleford Aerodrome is another local airfield, and offers pleasure and charter flights.