A BUS service to Ringwood School has been scrapped - and parents claim they were not properly consulted about it.

The 38 bus, which travels from Ferndown through Heatherlands estate and Ashley Heath, before arriving at Ringwood School, will not run from the middle of September.

The Morebus service was supported by Dorset County Council, but following a review of council funded services, the 38 bus will no longer be financed by the council.

Parent Nick Kenworthy, whose 14-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son use the 38, is disappointed the service has been stopped, but has further concerns over parents not being consulted on the issue after receiving a letter from the school in the last week of term.

"My wife and I both work full-time and I don't know how we're going to get the children to the school at the moment," Mr Kenworthy said.

"It's very frustrating and quite irritating to not have a proper consultation on the bus service. We should have been informed, or at least the school so they could inform parents."

Use of the 38 school service costs around £150 a term from Ferndown and Ringwood school have informed parents they are looking into funding a private service - however at a much greater cost.

Fellow parent Gail Bannister, whose 12-year-old daughter gets the 38 from Ferndown, said: "We moved to the area last year and my daughter has started to make new friendships and enjoy her time at the school.

"It would be heartbreaking for her to go through all of this again because she just has no way of getting to school.

"The thought of changing school in September is a nightmare for us."

Dorset County Council say the decision was informed by a public consultation, which was carried out on changes to public and schools transport between May and July 2016.

A Dorset County Council spokesperson said: "Following a review of public and school transport in Dorset due to the need to save £2.35m over two years, the council decided to no longer support service 38. The operator has taken the decision to run the service commercially but not during peak hours at the start and end of the day.

"There is currently only one Dorset child eligible for school transport to Ringwood, who uses another existing commercial bus service. The other children using the current service 38 are not eligible for free school transport."

Ms Bannister's daughter and a friend recorded the number of people using the bus and found on the last Wednesday of term 25 students used the bus to get to school.

Ed Wills, Morebus operations director, said: “School routes are especially costly because they operate at peak times and typically require an additional vehicle and driver for school term times only. We work hard to maintain these services, ensuring the funding we receive from councils is enough to cover our costs.

“We understand the negative effect too many service changes can have on our customers, and we try to limit them - whatever they might be - to twice a year when we announce our new timetables. To that end, we have decided to run the 38 service, providing an extra bus at our own cost, until our next change on 17 September.

“In the current climate - and like many local authorities across the UK - Dorset County Council has had to make some very difficult financial decisions. And, whilst I realise the resulting service revisions are less than ideal for some of our customers, we are doing all we can to mitigate the effects by continuing the most comprehensive operation possible in the circumstances."