Furious Borth residents have started a petition against reductions to the 512 service to Aberystwyth.

Mid Wales Travel announced on Monday it has been forced to reduce the 512, 301 and 304 routes - which are not subsidised by Ceredigion County Council - from the end of January.

Service users vented their frustration on social media at the ‘terribly sad’ news and said how disastrous the reductions would be for increasingly isolated Borth and Llandre in particular.

Borth resident Steve Ketteringham started a petition on Change.org calling for the current 512 service to be maintained and emergency funding to be pledged to achieve this.

With help from other residents, he wrote: “From 30 January we are losing the hourly bus service to and from our village.

“There has been no consultation, no planning around train times, no planning for college students, no planning for connections to the wider bus network.

“Mid Wales Travel and Ceredigion County Council are making public transport even less of an option for so many and disproportionally affecting those who already have less mobility.

“Degrading services like this bus route make it harder for people to access other services like education, health care and shopping and to get to and from work.

“Making a service less accessible means fewer people can use it and so becomes the justification for further cuts, and so on. It is essential to increase cheap and efficient public transport options, not remove them.

“This will most severely affect the most vulnerable…. the sick, the disabled, the car-less, those on the lowest incomes, the elderly, those with caring responsibilities and making life more and more difficult and miserable.

“It also goes directly against Ceredigion County Council's Climate Emergency declaration; it will increase car use, pollution and congestion. Bus services have already reduced severely over the past 15 years or more - with the loss of evening buses, and the Sunday service.

“This is a cut too far.

“We feel angry, despondent and ignored as we face the possibility of losing vital services from our village.

“We call on Ceredigion County Council and Welsh Government to provide emergency funding to sustain the service as it currently operates for the next six months; and to use that time to find a viable long-term solution, in consultation with local residents - whether through financial support to the current operator, or a new arrangement with a new operator - delivering, as a minimum, the current level of service.”

Other residents were eager to point out that the GP surgery in the village is also under threat following announcements made in the last fortnight about doctor shortages.

They say its loss would make the buses even more important for those needing to access healthcare.

Aberystwyth-based Mid Wales Travel operates six services across the county and its owner, Mel Evans, told the Cambrian News the ‘last thing I want to do is walk away.’

But he warned that passenger numbers need to improve if the bus services are to be salvaged – because companies cannot continue running at a loss.

“We’re just trying to save these services – we're not trying to cut them; we’re trying to save them,” he told the Cambrian News.

“We’re doing our best to keep our services going. I’m not making any money I can assure you of that.

“If enough people use the services, we’ll keep it going.

“We certainly don’t want to walk away from these services at all, but we can’t constantly sustain a loss.

“And hopefully we can go on longer than six months by doing something now. Hopefully by working with passengers we can get numbers back up and save the services.”

“We hope we can carry on. We think there’s a good chance.”

He says the cost of the company’s weekly fuel bill for just school runs went up by £6,000 – and service runs were similar.

The services now operating a reduced timetable are the 512 service from Aberystwyth to Ynyslas via Bow Street, the 301 from Aberystwyth to Penparcau via Waunfawr and the 304 Penparcau circular.

The 512 has been cut from an hourly service of 11 buses, to only six. The 301 is down from an hourly nine buses to four per day. And the 304 is down from an hourly service of nine buses to five.

The subsidised 525, 526 and 588 services will continue at previous levels.

The Cambrian News first revealed services in Ceredigion were in jeopardy in October with industry challenges resulting in the scrapping of the T22, T27 and the T29 routes in November – and the reduction of the 585 service.

On Tuesday, Llanrwst-based Llew Jones Coaches revealed the termination of the T19 bus service from Blaeneu Ffestiniog to Llandudno on 11 February - just 18 months after it was reintroduced.