FEARS have been raised for the future of vital bus services.

Hundreds of people have signed a petition against cuts to a service connecting a "remote" community with Blackburn town centre, and campaigners fear more could follow.

Residents of the Warrenside Close area, including many elderly people, used to be able to get into town every 15 minutes. But the private firm that now controls the network, Transdev, was not making a profit from the number two service and it now stops at the Brownhill Roundabout.

All that remains is a separate service, run by Lancashire County Council, every two hours.

Pauline Vaughan, of Belvedere Road, has handed petitions containing more than 200 signatures to Blackburn with Darwen Council leader, Coun Colin Rigby.

The 47-year-old said the move had left about 400 residents isolated.

She said: "It has caused great problems. There are many elderly people in the area - a lot of them are over 80.

"We have no community facilities here, no shops, churches or doctors' surgeries.

"People here are risking their social lives because they can't get into town, and I don't know how people are getting to work, because the first bus isn't until after 9am.

"They promised they would protect key services - and here we are, less than a year down the line, and they are being cut."

The bus network has been in private hands since January when Blackburn Transport was sold Yorkshire-based Blazefield Holdings after 125 years of council ownership, a move welcomed at the time by the leaders of the three main political parties.

Ward councillor David Pearson said: "In effect they can just do what they want because they are a private firm."

But David Wilson, Transdev Lancashire's commercial development director, said the council had the power to step in and subsidise routes it wanted to protect. He said the firm was in the process of a four-stage review of all bus routes in the borough, with changes being made to "a number of routes".

He added: "The company wasn't making any money at all, and being a private firm we had to turn it around. We have made a number of changes when we have had to.

"We are happy to work with Blackburn with Darwen council, and the local authority has the power to provide any services we do not run."