DOZENS of buses will disappear from the streets of Burnley and Pendle in the coming weeks.

But public transport bosses have said it will not lead to job cuts or huge changes to the boroughs’ bus network.

Management at Transdev Burnley and Pendle are blaming a drop in income from concessionary bus fares for the overhaul of their Starship and other services in the Pennine towns.

Eleven services are being amalgamated into eight and the main victims are short-hop routes like the Burnley-Towneley Park and Nelson-Marsden Park circulars.

No redundancies have been promised by Transdev but two buses from their fleet will be taken out of commission as a result of the changes, which are set to be introduced in November.

Marketing director Nigel Eggleton said: “We suspect that in the short-term it will lead to a reduction in overtime and as a result two vehicles will fall out of our fleet.

“We are confident that any reduction in employment levels within the company will be achieved through natural wastage.”

Ten jobs were axed as a result of a previous Transdev reshuffle, when the firm’s Northern Blue services were taken over by the Burnley and Pendle arm of the firm.

The current changes follow a comprehensive programme of cuts and alterations to services across Blackburn and Hyndburn, covering the company’s Spot On buses.

Mr Eggleton said: “We’re taking the opportunity to safeguard the network and cope with the impact of the recession.

“But all of the areas that we currently serve will still be part of our network.”

He said action had to be taken, as passengers themselves became more prudent in their travelling habits, to ensure non-subsidised routes remained commercially viable.

Under the moves, the most significant changes will involve the new Starship 3 service, which takes over from bus numbers 3, 74, 111 and 112 The 111 and 112 services, from Nelson to Rosegrove through the hospital, Harle Syke and Burnley town centre, will now only run every 15, instead of 10 minutes, as part of the new Starship 3 service.

The Burnley to Towneley (3) service and the Nelson to Marsden Park (74) service will be dropped, and partly replaced by the Starship 3 bus.

Meanwhile the majority of the other services will remain the same, with a renumbering exercise, seeing the 101, 102, 106, 109, 121 and 122 routes renumbered as Starship buses.

No changes are planned for the Mainline services, running from Burnley out to Barnoldswick, Earby, Clitheroe, Accrington, Nelson, Colne, Trawden, Keighley and Padiham, or the X43 or X44 buses to Manchester via Rawtenstall.