A document with all the proposed changes can be found on the righthand side.

Faced with increasing demand for services, rising costs and the need to continue funding other core services, such as education, adult services and social care, the County Council has been forced to look at areas where savings could be made to pay for these essential services.

With £2.77 million pounds being spent on 70 subsidised bus services, Councillors have regretfully decided that a saving of £300,000 from the budget would better reflect the Council’s spending priorities.

To ensure any decision to reduce or withdraw a service is based on real social need, an assessment process has been used that looked: at the average number passengers using a service; the average cost per passenger journey; the purpose of the journey and the alternative transport available.

This process has identified a number of services with relatively low ‘social value scores’. The Council has then looked at whether elements of the services could be amended - this could involve a reduction or the withdrawal of a route in order to save the £300,000 to be spent on other services.

Councillor Matt Bradney, Cabinet Member for Growth and Infrastructure, said: "No one likes to make the tough decisions to reduce or withdraw any bus service. We are in a horrible position of having to make savings to fund other services, which the Council provides. However we feel the system we have used to assess our subsidised services makes this system as fair as possible, looking at cost, social need and whether there are alternative services.

“The routes which we are looking to withdraw have only two to eight passengers on an average journey at a cost per passenger to the council tax payer between £7.15 and £23.97 This is clearly a significant cost to the Council and in an ideal world we would like to be able to sustain the subsidy. In reality of course we can’t. Especially given the limited funding we receive both from Central Government and via council tax to sustain the subsidised bus network.

“According to figures from the Government, bus passenger numbers in Cambridgeshire have increased by a staggering 10.3 per cent compared with a national average of merely 3 per cent. While we would not want to do anything to damage this, we simply cannot sustain bus services which unfortunately only a handful of people use. I understand those who will be personally affected will be angry but we are making these tough and difficult decisions to support essential services and for no other reasons.”

The six-week consultation begins on 16th August and runs until 26th September. A final decision on the future of the services will be made in November with the changes coming into effect on the 4th January 2009.

People can make their views and opinions known on the County Council’s proposals. Contact details can be found on the righthand side.