THE country’s transport supremo has been asked to step in and help save threatened bus services that provide a vital link to the Yorkshire Dales.

Richmond’s Tory MP Rishi Sunak has written to the Secretary of State for Transport, Patrick McLoughlin, asking him to help save the routes when funding ends in the next few months.

The DalesBus network is made up of services which operate during the summer months from large towns and cities in Teesside, North and West Yorkshire and Lancashire into the Dales. A reduced service operates in winter.

The net cost of operating the current network is around £80,000 annually. A large proportion of that came from the Local Sustainable Transport Fund but that funding ended in 2015.

Richmondshire District Council, Hawes and High Abbotside Parish Council, and Leyburn Town Council provided funding in 2015 to enable the Wensleydale Flyer service to continue to until the end of March.

But Richmondshire says it cannot provide any further funding for 2016/17.

Mr Sunak said: “It is vitally important that these deeply rural services are able to find ways to continue to provide for local residents and tourists to our beautiful area.”

Now he has written to Mr McLoughlin asking him to help save the routes when funding ends.

In his letter Mr Sunak praised the work of the Dales and Bowland Community Interest Company, the volunteers which has managed the service in recent years, and asked if the Government had any alternative schemes to support it as the LSTF comes to a close.

He also pointed to recent research which estimated the economic impact on local shops and other businesses of the services being lost could be as high as £250,000 a year.