RURAL activists have claimed that an additional £26.5m is needed for the government to realise its target of increasing access to rural bus services.

In a joint report published on Wednesday, the Council for the Protection of Rural England and Transport 2000 concluded that too few bus services actually met rural traveller's needs.

This has led to calls from both organisations to double existing rural bus service funding.

In a survey of 1,000 local authority contracts for new bus services, the report found that:

l Many services did not start until after the working day or left people stranded in town at night.

l Bus services were not always accessible to the disabled or those without a car.

l There were marked variations in the levels of services around the country, which have changed little with the provision of the rural bus subsidy grant.

l Some rural areas were seeing existing services withdrawn.

On a positive note, however, the report concluded that the grant had provided 2,000 new bus services with over half operating on five days a week or more. Thirteen per cent included a Sunday service.

Mr Paul Hamblin, CPRE's senior transport officer, said; "The rural bus has an important role to play in providing transport choice, improving people's access to services and supporting jobs.

"While ministers may take some comfort from our findings, we believe an additional £26.5m a year is needed on top of the existing grant.

"Changes are also needed to ensure the grant can be used more flexibly if the government's target to increase access to rural bus services is to be realised."

Thirty per cent of people in the countryside do not have access to a car during the day, while traffic is rising faster in rural than urban areas.

To cope with the added pressures of living in a rural area, the CPRE and Transport 2000 also want the government to establish minimum service standards in its Rural White Paper, transform the rural bus subsidy grant into a rural transport fund, support the integration of all transport and introduce safeguards to prevent services being withdrawn.

Mr Stephen Joseph, director of Transport 2000, added: "This report shows that it is possible to provide good, high quality rural bus services.

"But there is still a long way to go before every rural area has them."