A POPULAR bus service is making a return - with an extra day of service.

Barrow and Furness MP Simon Fell thanked those who were involved with the comeback of the new and improved X7 service, which links Furness villages to Barrow.

He said: “The X7 bus is resuming from June 23, now operating on Wednesdays and Fridays. The X7 connects Broughton, Kirkby, Askam and Barrow

“Thank you to local councillors Matt Brereton and Ben Shirley and the Friends of the X112 for their hard work in bringing back the service.”

The service, operated by community company BlueWorks, once began in Millom but is now set to begin in Broughton.

Cumbria County Councillor for High Furness, Matt Brereton, said: “This will make a big difference. The X7 as we see it now has been resurrected by BlueWorks which is the operator of the X112 route to Coniston, Ulverston and Barrow.

“With Ben Shirley’s help we had it resurrected not long after the original X7 ceased, which was a once weekly service from Kirkby and Askam through to Dalton and Barrow, and it was regularly full, but of course the pandemic hit and that really hit the numbers.

“We anticipate that it will be really popular and if it proves as popular as we think it's going to do, we will be looking at putting on extra services, perhaps going the other way and running it more days a week.

“We are hoping for a groundswell of people looking forward to these services starting and be prepared to hop on and give it a try.”