The Monday to Friday bus services Number 78 to Stanmer Park and 77 to Devil’s Dyke will be withdrawn from Friday 22 April.
The midweek buses, part of the ‘Breeze up to the Downs’ service, were introduced last Spring as a one year pilot project. The services were funded from the government’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund which ends in April.
Although the services have proved popular, the council has been unable to secure funding for a second year and, as a result, the mid-week buses will be withdrawn. The last buses will run on Friday 22 April.
Weekend services will continue to run as normal.
The council is currently exploring all possible options to secure funding to reinstate the services.
Councillor Gill Mitchell, Chair or the Environment, Transport and Sustainability committee said: “We understand that this news will be disappointing for many residents and visitors, but the current budget situation has left us with no option but to withdraw the midweek service. I would like to re-assure residents that we are doing everything we can to seek further funding to get the services re-instated.”
Estimates show that the cost of re-instating each service would be in the region of £90,000.
A midweek ‘Breeze up to the Downs’ bus service to Devil’s Dyke (No 77) will run during the summer season, from mid-June to early September, as this will be run by Brighton & Hove Buses on a commercial basis.
Frequent bus services 25 and 25X from the city centre and central Hove stop outside the main entrance to Stanmer Park – also service 23 from Brighton Marina, Eastern Road and Queen’s Park and service 50U from Hollingdean. Buses return towards the city from the bus stop in front of Falmer Station.
There have been no cuts to the council’s general budget of £1.2m for all other subsidised routes, which includes school buses.