COUNCIL bosses are refusing to reinstate a school bus service for primary-aged children, despite objections from parents.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's executive members for education and regeneration have both received petitions objecting to the school bus service 836, which runs from Whittlestone Head to St Joseph's Primary School in Darwen every day, being scrapped.

Last month, approval was given by Coun Mahfooz Hussain, in charge of education, for £74,000 to be cut from the annual £1.5million budget used to ferry children to school.

Cuts are also planned for buses funded by the regeneration department. They tend to be services running from deprived areas to schools.

One of the buses to be cut is the service to St Joseph's school.

A petition to Blackburn with Darwen Council, and presented to the executive board last week, called for the service to be reinstated.

Parents who signed the petition said it was a vital service and withdrawing it presented problems for them.

But in response, a council statement read: "The decision to withdraw the service was taken because of low usage.

"There was an average of just seven passengers per day being carried, the farthest of whom lives no more than 1.5 miles from the school.

"The cost of the contract for a 16-seater bus meant that the average cost of transport for each passenger was in the region of £1,000 per year."

There are also concerns that possible future cuts to college student services could hit people in Darwen hardest.

All funding for student travel starting college courses in September -- principally to Blackburn College, St Mary's College and St Wilfrid's Sixth Form -- has also been withdrawn by the council. But for the next school year, a government Pathfinder grant of £173,000 will help fund students needing transport to college in the area -- although colleges today expressed concern that no decision has been taken on what will happen once that money runs out.

Students currently receiving support to college in Blackburn with Darwen -- normally in the form of free bus travel -- will continue to receive it.

But Coun Colin Rigby, a Darwen Conservative, said: "Who knows what will happen what the grant runs out? There is no sixth form provision in Darwen and people have to travel."