VULNERABLE residents fear they will become isolated from the rest of Thurrock if bus services in the borough face further cuts.

The 374 route, which connects Grays and Basildon, was severely altered earlier this year when bus company Amber Coaches Ltd stepped in at the very last minute after Thurrock Council announced it would be cutting the subsidised service.

Now a consultation is set to be launched by the council over its two other subsidised to routes – the 11, which serves Aveley and Ockendon, and the 265, which runs between Grays and West Horndon – with the council expected to slash its subsidy budget to £120,000 from next year, down from around £600,000 in 2013.

The 374 change has already seen residents in Fobbing and Horndon-on-the-Hill cut off, with elderly residents claiming they now have to walk for over an hour to get to a doctors surgeries after also being left unable to get a bus to Orsett Hospital.

Joyce Whitelock, 88, of Waterworks Lane, Fobbing, said: “I have got a heart defect that needs to be checked and I’ve got asthma.

The worst thing is on the way back it is all up hill. It’s been tough but we have to do it don’t we?

“One lady I know had a broken hip last year and has had a hip replacement and has got very bad arthritis.

Before she could get out to the doctor but now she has to use other means, like taxis, when she can.” Dawn Roots, 68, of High Road, Fobbing, said: “It’s left the people up here absolutely helpless. It’s an ageing population here, but the people up here have always paid their way.

"If they were on benefits, it would probably be a different story.

“It’s such a short-sighted view. It’s not just the transport thing, people would meet up, go shopping and that’s all gone now. People just don’t know what to do.”

Amber Coaches director George Webster said the service was now barely breaking even. He said: “I think it’s appalling. The people in Fobbing have been abandoned by the council and they deserve some sort of rescue service. Bus services are a social necessity, but that side of the river needs council support to do so.”

He added: “The council needs to decide on priorities. Why can Essex County Council support bus services but not Thurrock Council?”

Corringham and Fobbing councillor Deborah Stewart added: “I feel horrified.

I have already met with the transport department to look at the process by which decisions are reached.”

A spokesman for the council: “Bus services are not a statutory service that has to be supplied by the council, indeed they are supplied by independent bus companies, some are subsidised by the council.

“Nobody in Thurrock should be ‘isolated’ as there is a community transport service – TransVol – which operates borough- wide.”