FURIOUS villagers and councillors are fighting cost-cutting plans to scrap an evening and Sunday bus service.
Cambridgeshire County Council wants to axe the number 10 and 10a service between Cambridge and Newmarket after 6.30pm, as well as on Sundays and bank holidays, as part of a shake-up of subsidised bus routes.
In a bid to save the service, which cov
ers Burwell, Bottisham, Reach, Lode, Swaffham Prior and Swaffham Bulbeck, parish and district councillors are urging as many people as possible to raise objections.
Residents have also launched a petition in protest, collecting several hundred signatures so far.
Hazel Williams, Burwell district and county councillor, called the proposals "disgraceful".
"We have more than 10,000 people in the area, including in Burwell, Lode and the Swaffhams, who will no longer be able to get to and from Cambridge and Newmarket," she said.
"The axing of the 6.30pm bus in particular will prevent some workers and students from returning home by bus.
"To cut off an enormous chunk in the east of the county is disgraceful."
Bottisham district councillor Dr Bob Stevens added: "This will have a devastating effect on residents, especially younger ones."
He said he feared the loss of the Sunday bus service would hit visitors to Anglesey Abbey and the area between Lode and Burwell, which is being developed as part of the Wicken Fen Vision.
According to figures from the county council, the number 10 route has an average of five passengers per journey and costs the council tax payer £8.74 each per journey.
The council claims it is spending upwards of £2.5 million on 70 subsidised bus services and wants to slash this figure by £300,000.
County councillor Matt Bradney, cabinet member for growth and infrastructure, said the authority could not sustain bus services which only a handful of people used.
Other services facing the chop include the number 46 and 47 between Ashley, Dullingham and Newmarket which only run at peak times.
But Burwell district councillor David Brown, who lives in Buntings Path, said he did not believe that so few people used the evening service.
"I have friends with children who go to Long Road College in Cambridge and regularly come back on the 6.30pm bus," he said.
"I just do not think the county council has looked at it properly. It is ludicrous."
The six-week consultation process ends on Friday, September 26, and a final decision will be made in January next year.
l To make your views known on the proposals, contact Passenger Transport on 01223 714005 or email passenger.
transport@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.
