BOURNEMOUTH council has blamed more buses on the road for a £140,000 repair bill to a controversial highway scheme.

Officials say extra services have ‘worn out’ the shared space surface in Old Christchurch Road.

And they are going to take it all up - less than three years after it was completed, and put down a ‘tougher’ new surface at Horseshoe Common.

But Yellow Buses say they have no idea where the council has got its figures from.

A terse one line statement from the company last night said: “The total number of bus journeys via Horseshoe Common has not risen since the new road layout was introduced.”

The 10 weeks of roadworks will begin on Old Christchurch Road from Monday.

The council claim the increased bus trips have caused “premature wear to the surface” of the shared space layout.

There are 44 bus movements an hour, the council states, compared to 31 before Yellow Buses’ timetable changed in January.

The council, who neglected to say the work was in the shared space area in their press statement, claim this equates to 600 total bus movements on that road per day - compared to 400 previously.

To repair the area, the council plans to lift the block paving from the road and use it somewhere else in the town where there is less traffic.

Old Christchurch Road will stay open but temporary traffic lights will be used.

Richard Pearson, highway design and road safety manager, said: “We are pleased to see an increase in buses using this road, as it shows that more visitors to the town are travelling sustainably.

“However, we need to ensure that the road surface in Horseshoe Common is able to take this increased heavy traffic to make this area safe and durable for the future.”

Richard Wade, Morebus and Unibus operations manager, said: “Just one of our buses - the Unibus U4 service - serves this location.

“It runs at one bus per hour and has done so for a few years.

“It operates Mon-Fri during term time only.”