A subsidised bus service that faced an uncertain future after police began probing irregularities in its operation is to run for another year.

North Yorkshire County Council’s Craven Area Committee has come to the rescue of the service, run by the Little Red Bus Craven under the wing of the Bentham Development Trust which has gone into liquidation.

It has agreed to transfer £30,000, a grant which was never used by the trust, to North Yorkshire County Council to continue community transport in Craven.

Currently the bus services are being run by Harrogate District Community Transport.

But, in giving approval, committee members insisted the cash was ring fenced to be used exclusively in Craven and insisted on receiving a report outlining how the money would be spent.

They heard from Craven Councillor Linda Brockbank, the council’s representative on the Bentham Development Trust, who said people believed that giving the service to the Little Red Bus had had a detrimental impact on other commercially run, small transport companies.

She quoted from a letter sent by Bentham Parish Council to Craven Council which oulined how “one-man” businesses had been lost because of unfair competition from the Little Red Bus which had been able to undercut private operators.

She said: “Much local transport has gone due to the aggressively-led Little Red Bus which was being subsidised. It was an unlevel playing field.”

County Councillor Robert Heseltine said the county council transport policy had led to the closure, in Gargrave, of the only petrol filling station over a 50 mile stretch of the A65 because of the owner had lost a community bus service which he had run for many years.

The committee was told that the service provided by the Little Red Bus would run for a year and there would be a new procurement process and tenders would be drawn up to encourage as wide a range of interest to maintain the services.

The committee was given a report on the changes and renewal of contracts to bus services SS1, 70, 78A and 79 in Skipton.

The new timetable came into effect on Sunday, March 29, after an additional three-week consultation with the public following a series of discussion involving councillors.

The additional cost as a result of the revised timetable was £22,796 a year.

The contracts are renewed every four years.

l The Little Red Bus Craven went into administration on March 30 following an investigation launched earlier this year when a member of staff was suspended pending police inquiries.