Evening park-and-ride bus services in Oxford are to be reduced due to a fall in passenger numbers.

The Oxford Bus Company announced its decision to cut services after 8pm from Monday, July 4, after talks with Oxfordshire County Council about financial assistance.

While services to Thornhill and Pear Tree will be maintained, other bus services will be used to link the city centre with Redbridge and Seacourt.

Daytime and early evening park-and-ride services will not be affected.

OBC commercial director Nigel Eggleton said: "We're making the changes in response to shifts in travel patterns in the city. The number of people using the park-and-ride services in the evening has declined, and we can no longer afford to commercially operate the lightly-used evening services. The alterations are designed to protect the long-term future of the services, but ensure passengers can still use park-and-ride in the evening."

The 300 service will continue to run between the city centre and Pear Tree every half an hour.

But passengers travelling to Redbridge will have to use the X3 Oxford to Abingdon service, which runs every 20 minutes until 11.58pm from St Aldate's. It will now make an extra stop in Abingdon Road, at the park-and-ride site entrance.

The 400 service from Queen Street to Thornhill will still run every 30 minutes, but passengers to and from Seacourt will have to use No 4 group of services, which run from Castle Street every 20 minutes until 11.28pm.

Mr Eggleton added: "We're very grateful to the county council, which has agreed to provide financial assistance for the 300 and 400 services in the evening."