THE axe will fall on all bus subsidies across Oxfordshire on July 20, it has been confirmed.

Oxfordshire County Council said it was making the announcement to give the public "clarity", with the time chosen to coincide with the start of the school holidays.

The decision will cost it £140,000 however, with some subsidies ending "later than originally planned in many cases".

A cross-party agreement between the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats saw the county council agree to end all bus subsidies at its budget meeting on March 16.

The measure will save £3.7m a year but could see more than 118 routes scrapped as bus companies declare them unviable without the local authority's support.

At the budget meeting councillors agreed that some of a £2m 'transition fund' to ease cuts to services could be used to support communities trying to come up with alternative solutions.

This week a report to the cabinet said the council would make more data about usage available, which had not previously been looked at.

The report said: "During the consultation which informed cabinet’s decision (to end subsidies), requests were made for usage data and we made available the limited data set we had used to test the methodology.

"However it has now become apparent there is more usage data available.

"Although we do not consider that this information changes our methodology, or the decision made, we consider it important that members of the public have a chance to review this data for themselves."