GETTING the bus isn't a bad way to travel, but in County Durham, at least, it looks likely to get more difficult.

The county council is taking an axe to its budget for subsidised bus services in an attempt to stem a possible overspend of £700,000.

Most bus services are run on a commercial basis by operators such as Arriva and Go North-East, big companies that need to maximise profits for their shareholders.

Through the day, they are profitable, but running night-time services to former pit villages, in most cases, would not be worthwhile because the number of passengers is too small.

The Labour-run county council pays the firms to keep the services going because they are considered to be important to the communities they serve, even if they are not commercially viable.

But now, ten services face cancellation, almost all of them at night or on Sundays, and a further 67 are in line to be reduced.

The Number 64 service runs between the Arnison Centre, on the outskirts of Durham City, and Sherburn Village, calling at the city's University Hospital of North Durham, the new Tesco supermarket at Dragonville, and the Sherburn Road Estate on the way.

Three buses run an hour during weekdays, there is a reduced service on Sundays and weekday nights.

The Arriva-run route is one of the services that will be affected. The council is considering merging it later in the evenings with the 63 service, running from Brasside to Sherburn Village.

I caught the bus yesterday afternoon from Claypath, in Durham, to Sherburn Village, paying £2.60 return - a single is £1.60 - for a journey of about three or four miles.

The vehicle that turned up, slightly delayed by the Durham traffic, was one of the company's new fleet, light, airy and comfortable and with space for buggies. It made the timetabled journey of 14 minutes in just about that time, carrying at most about a dozen passengers.

Pensioner Ruth Grand, 71, of Sherburn Village, who was making a shopping trip into the city, has a car but prefers the bus because it is more convenient, doing away with the hassle of trying to find somewhere to park.

She said: "I never bother with the 64 in the evening because they stop it fairly early. I think the evening service is a bit of a skeleton service.

"I would use it if it was a decent service, rather than driving into Durham and having to park. It is so hard to find parking spaces."

Another woman, who got off at Sherburn and did not want to be named, wasn't so complimentary. Yesterday, the 9.30am didn't turn up at all," she sighed. "It is a terrible service. I rarely use it at night.''

She added that changes to the service could pose problems for some people. "I think it will cause difficulties for people visiting someone in hospital and who rely on a bus like the 64 to get in. It will make it harder."

The council says most of the cuts will start in late January or early February and it is trying to minimise the impact.