Key evening and Sunday bus routes could be scrapped if the county council pushes ahead with a new funding plan.

Currently Essex County Council spends £1.3m a year subsidising the journeys of 500,000 passengers travelling in the evening on weekday and Saturday buses.

In a bid to reduce that figure the council wants to stop funding services after 10pm on weekdays and 11pm on weekends that have less than six regular passengers.

Services may be whittled down further on Sundays, when all journeys outside of a 8am to 7pm window with less than six regular passengers could lose their public support.

Inside the window the buses frequency could be dropped to once every two hours.

Services that could be affected on Mondays to Saturdays are the TrustyBus Loughton to Harlow 10.20pm and the 10.45pm the other way, although the whole service may be scrapped anyway if alternative, long-running plans come to fruition.

On Sundays the Ongar to Harlow service may also be affected.

Essex County Council cabinet member Ray Gooding said: “At present we spend around £9m of taxpayers’ money on these services each year.

“However with the number of passengers in some cases falling below six per journey, coupled with the strong financial pressure on all local government funding, means that we have to look very carefully at how we provide our services to ensure that the limited funding available is focused where it will do most good and where the local communities need it.

“We know that buses are important to many people. The consultation is the opportunity to have your say on our proposals.”

As part of the 12-week consultation covering all 59 evening and Sunday bus services currently run by the council will also look how local bus networks can be devolved.

An extension of a total of 62 contracts that are due to expire in March or July 2019 for an additional 12 months is being planned to allow for a full consultation to be undertaken before procurement is carried out for those services.

Of those, 500,000 passenger journeys take place on evenings and 300,000 on Sundays.

Liberal Democrat county councillor Stephen Robinson said: “This illustrates the depth of the funding crisis facing local government.

“On buses in particular, given our desire to reduce congestion, reduce pollution and to reduce social isolation, this is a retrograde step to be cutting these services which are a vital life line for many people.”

To take part in the consultation go to www.essexhighways.org/Transport-and-Roads/Getting-Around.aspx

Will you be affected by the changes? Let us know by emailing milo.boyd@newsquest.co.uk