Catching the latest movie, hitting the skate park or hooking up with friends could be just a bus ride away if plans to boost public transport for young people get the go ahead.

Moves to inject £10,000 of public money into the bus network to help young people access leisure and sports facilities is one of a package of public transport measures due to be considered by Cumbria County Council cabinet next Tuesday (November 12).

The authority is also set to consider a request for further funding to help bump up the number of buses feeding into Kendal town centre each day.

The proposal, put forward by CCC local committee for South Lakeland, argues more bus services are needed to help encourage people to leave their cars at home when heading into Kendal and make "a modal shift" onto public transport.

A report to cabinet from director of community, economy and environment Ralph Howard showed changes to Kendal bus services - brought in the wake of the new Kendal traffic system - coupled with local redundancies had resulted in a drop in take up of services to the tune of 15 per cent.

The report says: "The current level of financial support is not consistent with the aim of a modal shift from private to public transport planned to reduce the number of private cars - a reduction of peak traffic by 24 per cent during the traffic package period."

CCC spends almost £1.8 million on bus services across the county - of that money around £533,000 (30 per cent of the budget) is spent in South Lakeland.

Cabinet will be asked to give support in principle to the idea of increasing the annual budget specifically to support Kendal bus services.

South Lakeland area support manager Stuart Pate said it was too early to estimate the level of support needed.

"The Kendal traffic scheme is essentially a one-off cost but we want to find out if cabinet is in favour of the principle of providing year-on-year support for public transport in Kendal."

If cabinet backs the idea, councillors and officers and service providers such as Stagecoach will set about working out a more detailed proposal.

l Meanwhile, CCC is also preparing to place an £800,000 bid with the Rural Bus Challenge - a government-sponsored transport funding scheme to kick start rural transport - which would enable the authority to increase the frequency of the popular X35 service between Barrow and Kendal.

The council-supported service runs every 90 minutes but, at peak time, the buses sometimes become overloaded resulting in passengers being left at Grange-over-Sands.

If successful, the Rural Bus Challenge funds would be used to establish an hourly service and improve connecting networks.