WILTSHIRE Council is to cut £500,000 of bus subsidies and is about to consult people on services which face the axe.

But cabinet member for transport Philip Whitehead said 97 per cent of journeys would remain in place. He and other councillors refused to be drawn on where the cuts would be made.

A council spokesman said a final decision would not be made until after the new consultation has taken place. More than 11,000 people responded to the council original's questionnaires and the council said this had led to the funding cut being only a fifth of what was originally proposed.

Mr Whitehead said that the council had reacted to the huge reaction and it had changed its mind about cutting £2.5 million from the £5.1 million subsidy budget.

He said: “We had a fantastic response to the consultation. It really showed how much people value their local buses, and I am grateful to everyone who took the time to take part in the consultation.

“We believe that we can restrict journey disruptions to less than three per cent of services by reorganising times, better marketing and renegotiating contracts.

“Compared to a lot of other counties, I know our recommendation has a significantly lower impact on residents than other proposals.

“The information we had really has helped us, and I’m delighted we are proposing to buck the national trend and safeguard the services people really need.”

If buses were not subsidised by the council it is feared that many rural services would stop running leaving people stranded.

Half of the bus services in the county receive subsidies with the rest run on a commercial basis by a number of operators.

David Redgewell, from Bus Users UK, who helped organise information sessions across the county during the consultation, said: “It is very important for Wiltshire to have a good public transport system, especially to help with the night-time economies to Swindon, Salisbury and Bath trying to get youngsters to and from their education and for helping people travel to their employment.

“The majority of people we spoke to didn’t want bus cuts so we are happy with the recommendation.”

It was also agreed that the council should work more closely with the health authority in regards to public transport which will first be discussed when a paper is given to the health and wellbeing board.

The council said a consultation would be carried out with passengers on each service that faced cuts.