A NETWORK of rural bus services is at risk of collapse after a £45,000 shortfall in funding for 2016/17 was predicted.

The warnings about the future of the DalesBus services come as new research highlights the importance of buses to the local economy and residents of the Yorkshire Dales.

In a letter to Richmond MP Rishi Sunak asking for support, Dales & Bowland Community Interest Company (CIC) director Jan Stallworthy says that unless new funding can be found, much of the DalesBus network it runs will be under threat in 2016.

The network is made up of 14 Sunday and Bank Holiday bus services which operate during the summer months from large towns and cities in Teesside, North and West Yorkshire and Lancashire into the Yorkshire Dales. A reduced timetable operates in winter.

The letter warns that at immediate risk is the Sunday and Bank Holiday 855 and 856 Wensleydale Flyer services - which run between Gayle, Hawes, Leyburn, Bedale and Northallerton.

Two other services - the 830 Northern Dalesman service which links Hawes and Swaledale to Morecambe and Lancaster in the west and Middlesbrough and Darlington in the east, and the the 820/821 Eastern Dalesman linking Leyburn to and from Wakefield, Leeds and Dewsbury - are also in danger unless more money can be found.

The net cost of operating the current DalesBus network is around £80,000 annually.

A large proportion of this came from the Local Sustainable Transport Fund but this 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.

However Richmondshire District Council says it cannot provide any further funding for 2016/17.

No firm offers of funding have been received from elsewhere, despite appeals going out to other councils, businesses and individuals.

In the letter to Mr Sunak, Ms Stallworthy said that unless substantial offers of funding came forward by the next CIC board meeting on January 23, the directors would have no option but to cease the Wensleydale Flyer services at the end of March.

She added: "The potential loss of this service comes hard on the heels of the recent news of further cuts to weekday services across the Dales as a result of decisions by North Yorkshire County Council to reduce the local bus subsidy from April 2016 and other changes affecting Bedale and Leyburn."

New research conducted by Andrew Turnbull, a geography with transport planning degree student at the University of Leeds, in conjunction with the CIC, found that 71 per cent of passengers were local residents, dispelling the myth that Sunday services were only for tourists.