AN angry Worcester man has criticised the decision to only reinstate some trips of a city bus service that was saved at the last minute.

Gwen Hughes, aged 53, of Norwich Road, Ronkswood, is disabled and uses the flexiLINK 942 service to get from her daughter's house in Shap Drive, Warndon, to her home.

She said she tried to get the bus home on Tuesday, Feb-ruary 20, but it was fully booked and the same thing happened on Wednesday.

A Worcestershire County Council decision would have seen the service reduced on Saturday because it was apparently under-used.

As reported in the Worces-ter News last week, transport chiefs agreed to reinstate a reduced version of the service after a backlash from users.

Now the 942 - which serves Blackpole, Brickfields, Tolla-dine, Warndon, Warndon Vill-ages and the Red Hill Top areas - runs Monday to Friday from 10am-2pm.

But Mrs Hughes said this was not enough, and the reduced service would mean she would struggle to get a place on the bus for her and her 57-year-old husband Martin's regular journeys."On Tuesday I called to get the bus home from my daughter's house in Shap Drive. It's fully booked with children yet they say it's not used.

"Okay, they have put it on for a couple of hours in the day. But that's not good for the kids, it's not good for me.

"There's a young girl who comes from Nunnery Wood - she does an after-school club, so what will she do when she can't get the 4.50pm bus?"

She said it was clear the service needed to be kept at full strength because it was already not meeting the huge demand.

A county council spokes-man said: "Certain routes on the 942 service were retained because we were asked to try and preserve a certain level of public transport provision for older people in the area.

"Where peak times are concerned, students and commuters are well-served by routes such as the W2, W3 S23 and number 37 services.

"As we have said, we do accept that there are a number of regular users of the 942. Unfortunately, there are not that many of them and each journey taken by an individual passenger costs the council taxpayer £4 in subsidy.

"There is only a limited amount of cash available."