A THURROCK-based bus company has been spreading festive cheer across the region.

Over recent days Ensign Bus company has been delighting children and residents across Thurock and further afield on its regular routes with a decorated former London Routemaster bus.

Company director Steve Newman explains: "The idea started last year when grottos and winter wonderlands were being closed down and there was much misery and kids missing out on memories.

"Ross, my brother thought we could decorate a bus and run it round our routes and hand a few gifts out to anyone who came to their gate to wave.

"This we did and it was popular before Christmas covid lockdown put an end to it as were told anything that could create a crowd was banned, but the seed was planted that it would be a great thing to expand on for this year.

"So we did...

"The bus is a traditional 1963 Routemaster and we put more lights on it to make it Essex's answer to the Coca Cola truck!! We added a snow cannon and extra elves to hand out gifts. The idea was to run it across routes where we operate as well as sending it to some of our staffs houses where they had young kids but didn't live on our bus route operating territory.

"Monday and Tuesday saw us in Southend running over our summer open top 68 service, Wednesday was a staff day where it went to other parts of Essex and north Kent. Thursday was Thurrock where we did an epic six and a half hour trip covering Aveley, Ockendon, Ford Place, Lakeside, Purfleet, Grays, Chadwell and Tilbury.

"Tonight (Christmas Eve) is a short visit Tilbury Civic Square at about 5.30pm and then the bus will go Stanford-le-Hope to visit St Andrews Way and the decorated street where children and residents have been supporting the local community and then to the last of our staff who requested it."

The visit to Stanford is for the local residents there, say Ensign and a time has not yet been fixed. The local residents will be informed.

Steve added: "Over course of this week we have given out some 5,000 gifts to local children and brought a lot of smiles, it's simply been a nice thing to do after two tough years.

"I'm sure plan will be to do something similar again next year. We have learnt that we need to split Thurrock into two nights so we can get round before younger kids go to bed but even when it got late this year crowds were still unbelievable and we tried to take as much time was necessary at each and every stop to leave some lasting memories."