Cambridgeshire Against The Cuts attempted to lobby cabinet members ahead of Tuesday's meeting but the cuts were still approved.

BUS subsidies will be cut across Cambridgeshire after a protracted battle failed to secure them.

But the council has put plans in place to develop alternative provision in places where subsidies will be completely withdrawn and could leave vulnerable people isolated.

The saga has been running for more than a year when it was announced the support for community bus services would be pulled to save £3 million a year - but a legal challenge from Milton road resident Jo Green halted Cambridgeshire County Council’s plans.

Now, the council’s cabinet has approved the cuts but said some services might be kept if proved commerciably viable and run at a reduced level. Where bus routes disappear, the cabinet vowed to provide alternative provision “where appropriate”.

Councillors arriving for the meeting on Tuesday were met by a protest fighting to keep bus subsidies across the county. Steve Sweeney, Cambridge Unison’s branch secretary, warned the cuts would have a “massive effect on large numbers of people”.

Inside, Labour leader Cllr Tariq Sadiq criticised the council’s planned back-up for the buses - Cambridgeshire Future Transport.

The council will pump money into the community transport initiative, reaching £1.5 million by 2014, but Cllr Sadiq said it was “unclear and uncertain, untried and unproven”.

Following a consultation on the bus cuts, Cllr Steve Criswell admitted the removal of bus subsidies might hit the young, elderly, unemployed, women and disabled the hardest.

But leader of the council Nick Clarke said the subsidies were “blunt and withering” and needed to be replaced as the current situation saw the tax payer paying for half-empty buses to trundle around the countryside.

“We want to have something different, something that actually suits the needs of the people of Cambridge,” he said.

“We have had to make some Draconian cuts but it is about moving forward.

“There is nothing philosophical about this executive’s desire to remove transport, we want to improve it.”

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