Newmarket, Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds Stagecoach bus services are cancelled causing widespread anger

Angry residents are fighting back against plans to axe vital bus services from Newmarket and its surrounding villages.

Bus operator Stagecoach has announced plans to scrap numerous services, including the 11, 11x and 12, which connect Cambridge to Newmarket, Bury St Edmunds and Ely via the surrounding villages, from October 30.

The route cuts have shocked local communities, with a petition at www.change.org to save the 11 and 12 services having been signed by almost 5,000 people in the last few days.

And residents are expected to turn up to a meeting of Newmarket Town Council on Monday, at the memorial hall, when councillors will decide on the town’s response to the cuts.

Newmarket resident Chris Ashworth said for him the service was a lifeline as he used it to go to appointments at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

“I need to get an infusion at the hospital every three weeks, and I’ll have no way of getting there now,” he said. “My daughter works, and each appointment is four hours so it’s not as easy as just getting a lift. It’s scary to think about for someone like me, because I can’t do without those appointments.”

Sally Minns, who lives in Fordham, said she was completely dependent on the bus service.

“I just moved to Fordham this year and I have no car so I chose my home having checked there was a bus service. What can I do now? They are supposed to be running a service but they are putting profits before people. I want to know why there was no consultation.”

Newmarket town councillor John Harvey said the cuts to services was devastating news.

“We must lobby hard as time is short,” he said.

And Cllr John Borda added: “An awful lot of people use, and need, these services to get to work and to school.”

Newmarket MP Matt Hancock said: “These services provide a lifeline to so many people, and their removal will not only have a huge and detrimental effect on the local community but on the environment too.

“Their proposed removal is not acceptable, and I will do all I can to fight the decision.”

A number of villages in East Cambridgeshire will be affected including Soham, and Burwell.

District council leader Cllr Anna Bailey said: “Stagecoach is not a charity, of course, and they won’t sit by taking losses of hundreds of thousands of pounds per year on certain routes, but they were happy to take government Covid funding during the pandemic and to then announce these cancellations, just as that ends, when the funding had been given to keep services going, is morally unacceptable.”

“We are working hard to provide the best networks we can for local communities in the current challenging environment,” said its managing director Darren Roe.

“We are working to develop a sustainable future bus network for the region. The network will reflect the new travel patterns we have seen coming out of the pandemic, and current levels of passenger demand. we remain absolutely committed to working to deliver the best networks we can for local communities.”