A LEGAL challenge could be launched against a decision to axe subsidies for bus routes in Oxfordshire.

Senior councillors at Oxfordshire County Council on Tuesday agreed to stop paying subsidies to bus companies for some 118 services that are not ‘commercially viable’, mainly in rural areas.

It was part of efforts to save £3.7m in the council’s annual budget, amid wider savings of £290m up to 2018.

But the Campaign for Better Transport has warned the cost-cutting measure sets a “dangerous precedent” which could leave elderly and disabled people stranded at home.

Group chairman Martin Abrams said: “Our organisation’s job is to champion the rights of passengers, so in this case we have to look at a legal challenge.

“We understand the county council is in a difficult position, but the cuts agreed are some of the worst in the country this year.

“Our worry is that going ahead with the removal of all subsidies for services could set a dangerous precedent and that other authorities could follow suit.

“We could face a system where there is no local authority funding for bus services at all – that is the trajectory we are on at the moment.”

Mr Abrams said a key piece of legislation in any challenge would be the Transport Act 1985, which requires councils to “have regard to the transport needs of members of the public who are elderly or disabled”.

He compared the situation in Oxfordshire to that in Cambridgeshire in 2011, when the campaign group mounted a challenge against Cambridgeshire County Council after it also proposed to remove all bus subsidies.

That decision was changed after the threat of legal challenge, but Mr Abrams said the Transport Act legislation was “a grey area” and had not been substantially tested.

Oxfordshire County Council spokesman Paul Smith said the Act required the local authority to “secure the provision of such public passenger transport services as the council consider it appropriate to secure to meet any public transport requirements within the county which would not in their view be met apart from any action taken by them for that purpose.”

He added: “This means that the council must identify public transport requirements which would not otherwise be met and then once identified, secure what is appropriate.

“While the law places a duty on the council to identify unmet transport needs and consider whether they should be met through subsidy, it largely remains for the council to decide what it is ‘appropriate’ to subsidise in the context of available funding.

“Our obligation is not to fund bus services but to ensure there are appropriate public services, and particularly consider the needs of elderly and disabled people. We are actively looking at alternatives to subsidised transport, including community initiatives.”

Mr Smith said the agreed cuts to bus subsidies would only affect nine per cent of journeys in the county.

Senior councillors also pledged to review the decision in February, if money could be found elsewhere in the budget.