VILLAGERS are urging bus company bosses to scrap plans to axe their service to their isolated housing estate.

More than 50 routes were scrapped on Wednesday after Oxfordshire County Council withdrew its subsidies.

But the Thames Travel T2 service, which takes shoppers, from Berinsfield near Wallingford to the Cowley Centre, was given a temporary reprieve.

Now villagers want the reprieve to be made permanent.

Pensioner David Lee, 76, from Berinsfield, said: "People are pleased the service hasn't been cut completely yet, but it's only a temporary reprieve and we want it to be permanent.

"Sometimes there is standing room only on the T2, so the demand is definitely there."

A statement on the Thames Travel website said: "Thanks to financial assistance from Great Western Railway, the Berinsfield to Abingdon component of the T2 will continue to operate temporarily from Monday until August 12.

"In addition, a morning journey from The Original Swan in Cowley will operate to Berinsfield via Oxford, Hinksey Hill, Abingdon and Culham. A return journey will also operate in the evening."

Great Western Railway spokesman James Davis said the company was funding the T2 on a temporary basis as part of bus replacement services being provided while flood prevention work was taking place at Hinksey in Oxford.

He added: "It costs a considerable amount of money to provide replacement bus services – this is a temporary arrangement."

Former Pressed Steel worker Mr Lee, who lives in the village with wife Jennifer, 74, added that about 2,000 residents lived on the estate, and that cuts to bus services would leave them increasingly isolated.

Thames Travel's 97 service to Didcot and Wallingford which serves Berinsfield is also being axed, leaving residents with the option of walking to the A4074 to catch the X39 and X40 services to Oxford, Wallingford and Reading but these services do not visit the Cowley shopping centre.

Father-of-two Mr Lee, who lives in Wey Road, said: "There's a 40mph limit on the stretch of the A4074 running past the estate but few drivers take any notice of it because there is no deterrent, no speed cameras around.

"Lots of people do not have cars and it's very hard for pensioners to cross the A4074 – I had to wait 10 minutes to cross the other day – you have to be very careful.

"It would be great if the T2 could get a permanent reprieve. People round here really need it. If it ran every two hours instead of once an hour that would be grand."

Berinsfield parish councillor David Eldridge, who lives in Berinsfield, said: "People are very keen to keep the T2, otherwise people on the estate will become increasingly isolated."

South Oxfordshire District Council leader John Cotton, also ward councillor for Berinsfield, said earlier that the council would talk to bus companies about providing funding to support certain services.