OXFORD'S pioneering electric bus service has had the plug pulled on it because of cuts in the county council's budget.

It was threatened with the axe last year - but survived days after David Buckle, chairman of Oxfordshire County Council, was presented with an environmental award by Tony Blair, then leader of the Opposition.

But the environmental committee has now agreed to terminate the contract to save the £100,000 annual running cost.

Chief transport planner Roger Williams said: "It was one of the costs the county council had forced on it by the financial situation and lack of generosity of the Government."

The unique service, which links Oxford railway station with the University science area and was introduced as a one-year experiment four years ago to cut down on pollution, will stop running at the end of March.

The county council subsidised the service, which uses 18-seat electric minibuses provided free by Southern Electric and operated by Stagecoach. It was previously run by Oxford Bus Company until its contract ran out in October last year.

It suffered a hitch about two years ago when the buses had to be taken off the road after some of the batteries were damaged. Mr Williams said: "Since then they have been running effectively. When the council had to look very hard at its expenditure, environmental services was one of the focuses and this happened to be one of those things that had to go.

"Any bus service that the county council is subsidising is inherently loss-making otherwise the bus companies would be running the service commercially. We are at a disadvantage whatever buses we operate on this route.

"We feel the Government ought to be making some provision for new technology and encourage initiatives like this."

The county council tried to get funding to keep the buses running and app- roached research trusts, Southern Electric and the two main Oxford bus companies but without success.

Pippa Lee, a spokesman for Southern Electric, said: "We are looking at what we can do with them. It was a big environmental project with low maintenance, low cost and economically run. We would like to see something very positive happen with them.

"It's always quite disappointing when a project like that does have to come to a conclusion for whatever reason."

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