At-risk bus routes in Whitley Bay could be saved from proposed cuts after a petition was set up to keep them.
Now, councillors in St Mary's ward are confident routes W2 and the 51 will be saved - however, Nexus has yet to officially confirm this is the case.
Nexus announced it was reviewing the W2 and the 51 routes in early January. The travel company proposed cancelling the connection between Whitley Bay and Holystone currently served by the 51.
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The W2 would then become a reduced hourly service and would be extended to serve Beaumont Park, Red House Farm and Earsdon Village. The proposals sparked public outcry and a petition from the North Tyneside Public Transport Users Group, amassing over 100 signatures opposing the potential changes.
Three independent councillors for St Mary's took to Facebook and said in a joint post: "We are pleased to advise that Nexus have agreed to save the buses that were subject to their recent consultation. We await their official written confirmation.
"We distributed over 4,000 letters to local residents, regarding the proposed changes, and the local community's response has been overwhelming."
The three councillors, George Westwater, Pam McIntyre, and Judith Wallace, recently announced their resignation from the Conservative Party citing "toxic behaviour" within the North Tyneside Conservative Federation.
Huw Lewis, Customer Services Director at Nexus, said: “We know how important buses are to local people and we are doing everything we can to sustain routes through local communities.
“The response to our consultation on the future of the W2 and 51 has been strong, we have heard that and we want to keep both routes going as they are if we can.
“The situation we’re in is very challenging, through support from local councils we have increased the amount we spend on contracts for buses to record levels, more than £14m a year across Tyne and Wear as a whole.
“But at the same time the whole bus industry is under enormous financial pressure. Commercial bus operators have already made significant cuts last year and we fear there is more to come as the Government reduces the subsidy it pays to these companies.
“At the same time the cost of each contract we let is going up faster than the rate of inflation. As a result the money we have is being squeezed from both sides.
“We hope to have good news for people who now use the W2 and 51, but we need to understand the impact of threatened cuts across the wider commercial bus market before we can confirm this.”
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