By Richard Whitehouse LDR.

Cornwall councillors say that bus services have been cut in their areas leaving people unable to get to work or access services.

Concerns were raised about bus routes at a meeting of full council yesterday.

The council announced this week that it was cutting fares across a number of routes over the next four years thanks to £23.5million of funding from the Government. However, while this was welcomed by councillors some said they had actually seen services cut.

Adrian Parsons, Liberal Democrat councillor for Altarnun and Stoke Climsland, was visibly angry about the changes to services in his area. He quizzed Philips Desmonde, Cabinet member for transport, about the issue at the council meeting.

Cllr Parsons said there had been "an element of dishonesty" about the latest announcements from the council about bus services.

He said: "There has been no mention of the many rural bus services that have been buried this week." Cllr Parsons then mentioned a resident who uses the bus service between Launceston and Altarnun to get to and from work.

He said that when they got off the bus last week the driver warned them that the service would no longer operate after Sunday. Cllr Parsons said that there had been "no consultation and no announcement".

The councillor added: "This is happening right across East Cornwall. We have many residents without a link to their local town or to their job. This lady will have to quit her job if she can't find another transport. We have made these areas unsustainable locations."

Cllr Desmonde responded by saying that he thought that Cllr Parsons' comments about dishonesty were "inflammatory and totally inappropriate".

He said that rural bus services were a "problem everywhere, not just East Cornwall" and said that there were "anomalies" in the service that he wanted to iron out. However, he said that the best way to keep services was to get people using them and said that the council wanted to increase the amount of people using public transport.

Liberal Democrat group leader Edwina Hannaford said she welcomed the news about bus fares but said that in Looe, Wadebridge and Padstow people were paying more for buses than in the west of Cornwall.

She said that some services in her area of Looe West, Pelynt, Lansallos and Lanteglos had also been cut recently leaving people unable to access public transport. And she said that bus services were essential in the summer when the number of people in the area increases substantially along with the amount of traffic.

She said: "How does the removal of rural bus services and subsidised routes encourage a shift in behaviour to encourage people to use public transport?"

And she added: "I am at a loss to understand why people in Wadebridge and Padstow are paying more for their bus tickets now which will have the unintended consequence of driving people into their cars."

Julian German also raised concerns at the meeting about changes to the Veryan and Portloe service which he said meant that people could no longer get to Truro by bus, going against the council's aims of increasing public transport use. He asked Cllr Desmonde to "urgently review the service".

And Andrew Long, Mebyon Kernow councillor for Callington and St Dominic, said that people in East Cornwall were unable to get any benefits from the lower fares as they often use routes that go across the border into Devon which are not eligible for the Government funding.

He said: "Linda Talor (council leader) gave a glowing report on the bus fare project and how it is helping people, but across Cornwall, this is simply not the case. How is it levelling up when people in South East Cornwall are treated as second class citizens?"

Cllr Desmonde said that the council wanted to help provide a "superlative quality bus service" but said the issue was lack of demand for routes which made them economically unviable.

He said that the bus fares project was for Cornwall only and could not be used for services that go across the border to Plymouth or Devon – a stipulation which he said had been "imposed on us".

Cllr Desmonde encouraged councillors to get in contact with him about any issues with bus routes and services and said that a list would be drawn up: "In June we will put all the anomalies together and examine how we overcome these difficulties."