The Oxford Bus Company says it has no plans to operate a direct bus service across Oxford from Blackbird Leys to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington.

Blackbird Leys Parish Council wrote to the company asking it to look at the idea after residents on the estate complained about difficult journeys to and from the hospital.

Resident and councillor Sheila Smith told the Oxford Mail a trip to the JR using buses took her nearly two hours.

She said: “My sister is in the hospital with a broken hip so I have to go across there and if I set off at 1.15pm, I can get there by 3pm. You’ve got older people across the estate having to pay for taxis every week.”

But in a letter to the parish council, the bus company’s operations director Louisa Weeks said: “At this time we have no plans to provide a direct bus service from the Leys to the JR.

“To make a commercially-sustainable service run would take considerable resources and we do not deem there is sufficient demand to support it.”