PROTESTERS last night demonstrated outside Blackburn Town Hall against the sweeping bus cuts in the borough.

They made their stand – with regard to services 10 and 11 – before a council meeting in which the borough’s executive board passed a motion urging Lancashire United to reconsider.

Earlier this week the Lancashire Telegraph revealed every bus route in the borough was being affected by sweeping changes to save £1million.

Drivers are to be laid off, several services axed and the number of stops reduced.

Then yesterday it emerged the firm was planning to sell off some of its state-of-the-art single decker wheelchair-friendly buses.

This meant that the number two route to the Royal Blackburn Hospital would be serviced mostly by a double decker bus, potentially hindering the access of patients with mobility difficulties.

The overall changes, which are due to be introduced from Sunday, September 20, will see some areas like Pleckgate, East Park Road, Hamilton Street, Parkinson Street, Feniscowles to Ewood, Hoddlesden and Spring Vale without an bus at all.

At the Blackburn with Darwen Council Executive Board meeting leader of the council Mike Lee put forward the motion that members ‘do not accept' the bus company’s decision.

It calls upon the firm to reconsider its position ‘as a matter of urgency’ and enter ‘meaningful negotiations’ to maintain services.

And it instructs officers to carry out a feasibility study on whether the council can run transport services in areas which are suffering losses of bus services.

This study will report back to the board in a month’s time. If feasible it would be implemented before that meeting.

Meanwhile, a dozen volunteers took a petition around Hoddlesden on Wednesday night to stop the village bus service from being axed.

Organised by East Rural councillor Julie Slater, the petition got hundreds of signatures in the first few hours and will be presented to Lancashire United, the bus company which plans to cut the number 2 service from September.

Coun Slater said: “We need to save the buses and I will fight for it.

“What will all the young people and old folk do without them? How will people get out of the village without cars?”

“It seems all the bus company care about is money, money, money.”