BUS fares on subsidised routes across East Lancashire are set to rise by at least 3.3 per cent, public transport bosses have confirmed.

More than 100 services are supported by Lancashire County Council, alongside the commercial network, mainly offering evening and weekend buses, or covering some daytime rural and urban routes.

An annual review of ticket prices will see fares for subsidised routes being revised to reflect prices for their commercial counterparts – so where a private operator runs a service during the day and the authority supports an evening service, the fares would be equalised.

Under the 1985 Transport Act the county council is required to ensure that the fares on subsidised services are not lower than their commercial alternatives.

The average 3.3 per cent rise, for those fares not connected with a commercial service, is linked to the Retail Price Index.

County councillor John Fillis, Lancashire’s highways and transport cabinet member, said the fare rises had been kept to a minimum, where possible.

He added: “We’re having to review bus fares for legal reasons.”

The increase is scheduled to come into effect on Saturday, July 7.

Last September, Transdev, which runs Spot On buses in Blackburn and Hyndburn and Mainline and Starship routes in Burnley and Pendle and wider routes under Lancashire United, announced a slight hike in fares which was blamed on fuel duty rate cuts.

And the last fare rise by Rossendale Bus, which runs services between Blackburn and Rawtenstall, Accrington and Rochdale via Rawtenstall and Bacup, and routes to Ramsbottom and Edenfield, caused controversy when they announced fare rises of between 7.6 per cent and 22 per cent last December.