Bus service between Ludlow and Leominster saved from axe

The 490 service between Ludlow and Leominster will run for another year and a new timetable, including weekends and daytime services, has been released.

The service had been due to face major cutbacks from today, which would have seen it effectively become a school run-only route, due to a lack of funds.

Officials at Leominster Town Council and members of neighbouring parish councils have agreed to pledge money to fund the full timetable for the next 12 months.

The bus had been funded by a Rural Transport Fund grant for the past nine months, but that money ran out at the end of March.

The previous 492 service between Hereford and Ludlow had been halted at the Shropshire border in 2014 with the exception of two services for the school run on weekdays. But following a public campaign a full timetable to Ludlow was reinstated by Herefordshire Council last summer.

Les Lumsden, spokesman for Save Our Buses said the service had had a remarkable eleventh-hour reprieve.

He said: "This has come from the parish councils, from the grass roots, who have agreed to give a bus route a new lift, to rebuild it."

He said all of the parish councils on the bus route gathered together with Leominster Town Council.

"Several of them have already contributed and some have gone away to discuss an amount, but all have agreed to support it in principle.

"And so this service is going to continue for another year now."

He said in the light of the pledge, Herefordshire Council and operators Lugg Valley had agreed to keep running the service with the same timetable.

The only local council on the route not to have pledged money to keep the bus running was Ludlow Town Council, he said.

Gina Wilding, Ludlow town clerk, said the council had yet to be officially informed by Herefordshire Council that the service was set to carry on running as it is, so it had not yet been tabled to discuss what it might contribute.

But she said with cuts set to bite over the coming year, demand for funding was coming from all sides.

She said: "We are in the process of contacting the parish councils along the route and looking at their provision.

"The wider concern is that Shropshire Council is talking about reducing or completely cutting subsidy to the Ludlow town centre and park and ride services, so it's not just this bus service we have to worry about."

A spokesman for Herefordshire Council said: "The service will continue to operate to its published timetable after April 10 while the possibility of further additional funding is investigated."