Pensioners in Idle have won their year long battle to get a bus service to take them up the village High Street - but say there is no way of getting back down again.

Members of the Idle and Thackley Community Council have been trying for more than a year to get First Bradford to alter its 810 service up the High Street.

They claimed that elderly people found it difficult to get from the bottom of the village up to the medical centre at the junction with Town Lane and Highfield Road.

Now Metro has agreed to extend the service twice a day but campaigners say it's not enough and pensioners getting the second bus have no transport to take them back down. Community Council member Marjorie Darton said: "It's good news that the service has been extended - but twice a day is not enough.

"It's better than nothing but it defeats the object if people are having to find their own way back down.

"If you can't make the first early bus and you get the second, then you end up walking down.

"It's a very steep hill and in bad weather it would be extremely difficult and slippy for an elderly person to manage to get down.

"All we can do is use the new service, show it's needed and then hopefully get it extended."

The new service, which started yesterday leaves the bottom of High Street at 8.53am, getting to the top of the hill at 9.06am. The second service leaves at 9.58am and gets to the top of High Street at 10.09am.

Councillor Jeanette Sunderland (Lib Dem Idle) said she was urging people to use the new bus service so it could be extended.

"It's a great news that we've got this service after more than 12 months of campaigning," she said.

"But the new service only goes twice a day in the morning.

"The first bus allows a quick visit to the doctors or the shops before you get the bus back down. But if you get the second bus, there is no way of getting back down.

"Pensioners will either have to walk back down the hill or get a taxi which is ludicrous."

A Metro spokesman said: 'The extended 810 bus service started on May 3. All new bus routes are monitored to see how well-used they are. Only then would we look at any further developments."

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