A MAJOR bus service between Chippenham and Bath is to be cancelled due to “too many buses” operating on the route.

The 231 daytime service, which stops at Pewsham, Corsham, Rudloe and Box, is due to be cancelled on April 24 by operators First West of England.

Andrew Sherrington, First’s general manager for Bath, said: “At the moment there are simply too many buses running along the corridor between Bath and Chippenham.

“At present, there are four buses an hour between these points provided by two separate operators, as well as plus a fast train service.

“As a result, we do not take enough passengers to cover the costs of operating this service.

“Customers will still have a half-hourly service, provided by another operator.

“We did not take this decision lightly, however we cannot operate services that run at a loss.

“Our commercial bus services are funded by the money collected in fares from our customers.

“All bus operators are strictly forbidden from cross-subsidisation – that is using the profits used on busy bus services to fund those that are less used less used.”

Despite cancelling the service during the daytime, First are required to operate the evening and Sunday services on this route as part of their agreement with Wiltshire Council.

Fellow operator Faresaver have now announced they will run extra buses on their X31 service from Chippenham to Bath earlier in the morning and later in the evenings from April 25, after the 231 daytime service is cancelled.

This will include some services to Furzehill and Kings Avenue, and will accept Wiltshire Council issued student passes.

Co-owner of Faresaver, Justin Pickford, said: “When we heard that First were stopping the service we saw that at certain times of the day when there would be gaps in the service and felt it prudent that we fill in those gaps.

“We can’t issue the timetable to the general public just yet as we need to make sure that it is approved, we don’t want to issue something and find out it’s wrong.

“There’s a lot of passengers upset about what First have done, but we’ve operated this route since 1998 and we get asked the same questions, are your buses big enough, are they running at the right times?

“We are doing everything we can so that the transition happens smoothly and we are quite confident that we can take over and fill in the hole left by First.”