COUNTY council bosses were today blasted for subsidising a bus service which costs them £24.72 a week for each passenger.

On average only one passenger gets on each 210 Clitheroe to Longridge service, which operates five times a night, two nights a week.

Details of the cost emerged when a review of all subsidised services was ordered.

It will be axed at the end of next month, eight months after a previous review aimed at reducing the £6.78 per passenger subsisdy led to costs quadrupling. Recent figures show it is carrying just 10 passengers a week.

The 210 service runs on Thursday and Friday evenings from Clitheroe to Pendleton, Wiswell, Whalley, Calderstones, Hurst Green, Knowle Green, Ribchester and Longridge and is among nine to be axed.

Officials had tried to reduce the cost by cancelling the Saturday night service but that resulted in even fewer passengers as people thought the service had been cancelled altogether.

But Coun Tony Martin, in charge of transport, said: "It appears our attempts to reduce cost didn't work, but what we did will have been based on consultation.

"We couldn't just leave it as it was. Sometimes it doesn't work."

Axeing the service will lead to a £13,226 saving a year for LCC. Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans said: "Clearly the county council is to blame for this situation.

"It has tinkered with the route which has led to it becoming unsuitable for the needs of people in the community. People will have thought that when one service was stopped, they all were.

"People pay vast sums of money to live in rural areas and are receiving virtually no services from the county council."

But while the 210 service at least averaged one passenger per journey, others being chopped didn't even get that.

The 209 service, between Clitheroe and Chatburn on Wednesday to Saturday evenings, currently costs £11.20 per passenger journey.

Cutting it will save £19,237 every year but like the 210, previous alterations to the service only led to the subsidy rising. Prior to a review last summer, it cost £6.18 per passenger.

Also for the chop are the 105 between Longridge and Clitheroe on Sundays and Bank Holidays via Whalley, evening and Sunday services on the 3A from Accrington to Huncoat and the 15 and 18 Accrington Town Circular services.