ELDERLY residents have repeated fears they will be completely cut off from wider society when their only bus service is scrapped.

The #7 bus, which is the only service that takes people from Haverigg to Barrow, and passes through Kirkby and Askam, will stop at the end of the school year in July.

Stagecoach's contract for the school service is coming to an end at the end of the summer term and the #7 bus route is no longer deemed to be financially viable to operate without the school service cash from Cumbria County Council.

The route currently runs two buses a day in each direction and pensioners like 85-year-old Lawrence Baines from Askam use the vital service to travel to Barrow three times a week.

"The bus leaves Millom at about 9.30am and so I get on at Askam and come into Barrow to do my shopping, see family and for medical appointments," Mr Baines, of Steel Street, said.

"The bus is always 90 per cent full and at least three quarters of the people who use it are pensioners. One woman, who's 92, is devastated it will no longer run. She lives at Kirkby and this is her only form of transport."

Mr Baines, a former builder and shipyard worker, said many of the vulnerable passengers now fear they will be cut off. The only alternative form of public transport is the train service but pensioners' bus passes cannot be used on the rail network.

"Something absolutely needs to be done or these people are going to be cut off from the outside world," Mr Baines said.

"I'm here to stand up for a bus-full of people, elderly people who have no transport or support network, and say this is not fair and someone needs to do something about it."

A spokesman for Cumbria County Council said: "Bus services in Cumbria are now run on a purely commercial basis – where there is demand and where operators can run a sustainable service, they will run.

“The council’s role is to explore community transport alternatives, such as Rural Wheels or voluntary driver schemes, where a bus service is not viable.”