A ‘lifeline’ bus route between York and Wetherby is set to be withdrawn, leaving Rufforth with no services whatsoever.

Operator Connexion plans to withdraw its 412 service from December 10 as it is losing money.

Withdrawing the service will also hit the fast-growing village of Tockwith, which also contains many elderly needing such a service.

Managing director Craig Temple says the route is one of the biggest lossmakers his company operates and says City of York Council must do more to help.

The route has been losing money since before the pandemic, which led passenger numbers to fall further.

Changes to the 412 service were made so it operated around a school service, but this has not “stemmed the losses.”

Mr Temple told the Press: “I've been trying for a number of months to get some funding from the local councils (West Yorkshire Combined Authority, City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council) to help sustain it, but this has been to no avail, so we had to decide to terminate the service.

“However, I now understand that there is to be a tender issued for some sort of service, although the details are still to be seen by operators.

“We would love to win the tender and continue the service, but it needs to be at a sustainable level to us,” he added.

Part of the problem, Mr Temple explained, is that the money operators get for concessionary fares is “too low”, a problem exacerbated by the large number of elderly and other such passengers using the 412 route.

He added: “City of York Council has [government] funding for electric buses in York when services are being cut. People would rather have a bus than no electric bus.”

City of York Council, however, is demanding central government find more money to fund bus services.

Rural West York Lib-Dem councillor Anne Hook says the issue has been discussed by parish councils serving villages in the area, who have organised a petition to help save Rufforth’s only bus service.

A meeting of the ‘full’ city council last month saw councillors back a Liberal Democrat motion calling for work to take place to retain as many routes as possible locally.

The Council Leader Cllr Keith Aspden has also written to the Transport Secretary to call for a long-term, sustainable funding deal for buses to be put in place urgently to avoid “a funding cliff-edge” that is fast approaching in spring.

Cllr Hook says central government must come up with secure long-term funding to help protect bus services as their loss is becoming “a major issue.”

She added: “If we are to go green, have Net Zero, there has to be buses as an alternative to the car.”