A COASTAL village's hail-and-ride bus service has won a partial reprieve.

The popular Silverdale Shuttle, which links the railway station and village, was one of many rural buses facing the axe by Lancashire County Council as part of £200 million budget cuts.

The prospect of schoolchildren and commuters being left to walk one mile along "unlit, un-pavemented country lanes" caused serious concerns among Silverdale parish councillors.

However, the county council has decided to merge the Silverdale Shuttle with bus service 51. This means that - from Monday, April 3 - a single daytime bus will run Monday-Saturday between Silverdale and Carnforth, enabling connections with buses and trains.

The partial reprieve is among a £2 million package of investment by Lancashire County Council designed to keep buses running for 12 months in locations that would otherwise be cut off.

"It means that our bus service, or at least some of it, is saved for another year," said Silverdale Parish Council chairman Terry Bond.

MORE TOP STORIES:

"A revised timetable has gone out to tender so we should have something that meets our needs. We devised the timetable ourselves for the bid, and got what we wanted so folk can still get round the village, get to the station and get to Carnforth."

Meanwhile, a councillor for Carnforth told the Gazette she was disappointed that two bus routes relied upon by elderly shoppers were being withdrawn next month.

"It's going to be a very great loss to the community," said Lancaster city councillor Mel Guilding, who represents Carnforth and Millhead.

The thrice-weekly 5C bus between Carnforth and Morecambe is being scrapped, as is the 55C from Carnforth to Lancaster, which also runs three times per week.

The services had become "a shopping bus and community bus for a lot of elderly people, myself included", said Cllr Guilding. All the passengers chatted to each other, and the loss of the services would be keenly felt, with older folk likely to become more isolated.

Cllr Guilding, who lives in Crag Bank, will now have to walk 15 minutes to catch an alternative bus into town. "People will manage with great difficulty," she said.