Commuters, students and people will hospital appointments will suffer as a result of further cuts to bus services, it is feared.

Service 40, between Crewkerne and Beaminster, operated by First, has been run by Dorset County Council since July last year.

From Monday, October 29, First's Buses of Somerset will run the service on a different timetable that will see at least one journey discontinued.

According to the county council, the new service will provide four return trips per day, with the final journey being direct from Yeovil to Beaminster.

Currently, the service leaves Bridport at 7.30am on weekdays, arriving in Yeovil at 8.51am.

Under the new timetable, there will be no journeys before 9am on this service.

Draft plans were unveiled at a meeting of the West Dorset Western Area Transport Action Group (WATAG), which claims as well as the early morning service, the 17.15 Yeovil to Bridport journey has also been discontinued.

A spokesman for WATAG said: “We are very, very concerned. This is very short notice and the new timetable does not address any of the issues we feel have been in place for almost a year.”

The action group hopes to meet with representatives of First to see what ‘improvements’ can be made to the service.

There is a service operated by schools – The Sir John Colfox Academy and Beaminster School - to Yeovil College, so students requiring an early start are being advised to contact their student support services for advice.

The county council hopes there are 'opportunities which will arise from the arrangement that is in place.’

Cllr Daryl Turner, the council’s cabinet member for the natural and built environment, said: “I am happy to announce this replacement supported service in West Dorset linking Beaminster with Crewkerne for other bus services and rail.

“While it is disappointing that a full timetable is not available, the ability to fund the peak journeys for a few passengers is not possible with the current funding levels.”

David Ridgewell, of Bus Users UK, says Dorset is seeing ‘the worst set of cuts in South West England.’

David said: “This is a bitter blow for Bridport. If the council wants a healthy economy and tourism, people need buses to be able to travel to work, school and socialise.

“It’s quite a unique level of cuts – I cannot find any other examples in the South West where they’ve cut bus services as deeply as this.”