PROPOSED bus cuts have been described as a council ‘cutting its nose off to spite its face’, a heated meeting heard.

There has been huge public outcry over Dorset County Council plans to slash its subsidy to public bus services by £850,000, with fears some rural communities will be cut off completely.

Those who made representations to the packed county council’s cabinet meeting cited the young, elderly and disabled as the losers in the cuts.

Coun Ros Kayes who represents Bridport, said the plan was a ‘contradictory’ move from the council, which cited the need for public transport when talking about how it will implement other plans.

She told the cabinet: “My concern is that so many other reports that have come before this cabinet, for example social care and parking in Bridport, talk about the need for access to buses.

“And if we are going to cut bus services to those areas where people are rurally isolated, we are not only cutting our nose off to spite our face in terms of meeting targets in other policy areas, but we are also being counter-intuitive and contradictory.”

She added that there was no ‘joined-up thinking’.

She said she was particularly concerned about the X53 service, which runs from Lyme Regis through Bridport to Weymouth and has already seen its winter Sunday service withdrawn. She said this would affect people from Bridport and Lyme trying to get to work in Weymouth at the weekends.”

After the meeting, Coun Hilary Cox, Cabinet member for environment, said: “We are still working through the detail, but we will be altering the proposals which originally went out for consultation in early August.

“We are carefully considering all the responses we have received, and looking at all the options available. We aim to ensure no community will be cut off or left without a service that currently has a service.”

The county council needs to save £850,000 from its £2.8 million bus subsidy budget by April.

The county no longer gets funding from Government to subsidise non-commercial bus routes.

Initial proposals were drawn up about the routes most likely to be affected, following a survey of passenger numbers, which highlighted that many routes were under used and therefore not value for money for the Dorset council taxpayer.

Final decisions will be made on December 4, and councillors pledged to listen to the feedback and do their best to address people’s concerns.