RURAL communities across Devon have been ‘cut off’ from the outside world as local bus services have been axed, according to one local MP.

South Devon’s Liberal Democrat MP Caroline Voaden told a debate in the House of Commons that some villages had been left completely without a bus link by recent cuts.

She went on: “Over the summer recess I held surgeries in 52 towns and villages across my constituency and an issue that came up again and again and again was buses, or rather the lack of them.

“Many communities in my rural constituency are now effectively cut off. Some have just one or two buses a day, but others, such as Bigbury, St Ann’s Chapel and Ringmore, have no service at all.”

She said that since 2015 bus journeys in Devon had fallen by 40 per cent.

“Under the previous Conservative government services were cut, scaled back or made so unreliable that they are no longer usable,” she said. “Since the election last year, the cuts have continued.

“Buses connect people to jobs, education, healthcare and each other. Without a convenient, frequent and affordable service, people of all ages are being left behind.”

Mrs Voaden also paid tribute to community bus schemes in South Devon such as Totnes-based Bob the Bus, the West Dart bus and the Coleridge bus, for tackling rural isolation and loneliness.

During the same debate Torbay Lib Dem MP Steve Darling called for the £2 bus fare cap to be restored, having been increased to £3 last year.

“In Torbay, which is sadly one of the most deprived constituencies in the south-west of England, bus travel is the primary form of public transport,” he said. “The £2 price cap was valued by young people and by those of working age in navigating Torbay.”

And Newton Abbot’s Lib Dem MP Martin Wrigley said Stagecoach had cut the frequency of essential buses such as the number 2 from Exeter to Paignton via Dawlish.

“That drives people away from the buses, makes the service unusable and takes away the social value of the route,” he said.