A PENSIONER from Littleworth, near Worcester, has hit out at "cruel" cuts to the village's bus service.

Margaret Pinder, 70, says plans to reduce the 382 service, which runs from Worcester to Pershore, has made villagers feel like they are not wanted.

The planned cuts by First UK Buses will come into effect on Sunday, September 4, and will see the service shift from once every two hours to once every four hours. And the Saturday service will be scrapped completely.

However, First Buses say the low number of people using the service means the frequency of buses had to be reduced.

Mrs Pinder said: "Littleworth and other villages near have been told that our local bus service will be cut.

"In Littleworth we have no doctor, no chemist, no dentist and nowhere to buy food so a lot of people rely on the bus.

"We have a lot of elderly people who have no other way of getting into town unless they use a taxi which is £12 each way to Worcester which is a lot out of a pension.

"It is just cruel, a lot of elderly people cannot shop online as they do not have computers so they have to use the buses.

"I have tried to speak to the bus company but they keep telling me the person I need to speak to is on holiday.

"If you just need to nip to the shops you don't want to have to wait for three and a half hours just sitting on a pavement.

"There is a bus at 12 minutes past 10 and then not another one until five past two in the afternoon, it is just cruel.

"The Parish Council are all on holiday and do not have a meeting until the middle of September when the changes will already have been enforced.

"The 32 bus service in St Peter's runs every quarter of an hour, is it too much to ask for some of these to come to Littleworth, it's only a few minutes down the road?

"My husband has a car so I can get into town if I want, but a lot of people cannot, we have been discarded as if we are not really wanted on the planet."

As well as elderly people, Mrs Pinder also sees a problem for families with children.

"Without the Saturday service, what will families do? They can't just take a child out of school because he needs some new shoes," she said.

Ady Culpin, a spokesman for First Buses said: "We have had very few people using the bus service.

"We have managed to continue the service but with reduced frequency.

"I think it is always a difficult decision to have to reduce the service but not enough people are using it.

"If you are only using it once or twice a week that is not really enough to keep the service running."