THERE are fears for jobs -and rural bus routes - following a shock announcement this week by First Western National.

First Western National said that four of its depots in Devon and Cornwall will close in the autumn – including the outstation at Liskeard.

The news that the Liskeard depot will close at the end of September has sparked fears that vital routes linking the town and outlying villages will cease to run.

A possible 14 jobs will be affected by the Liskeard closure, out of a total of 35 redundancies across the four affected stations. Further jobs will be 'reabsorbed' into other areas of the business, say First Western National.

County Councillor for St Cleer Tony Powell said that the announcement was 'a potential disaster' for the area, and that County Council would now do everything it could to encourage and seek alternative operators. In a statement released this week, First Western National said that the closures were due to increased costs and a lack of consumer demand on certain routes.

Managing director Paul McGowan said: 'We have taken a long hard look at our business and how it is functioning. We just cannot continue to run certain services which are not well supported by customers or viable with the current level of funding support.'

Commenting on the news, Liskeard County Councillor Mike Gillbard said: 'Seeing that Cornwall had £1.3million to subsidise rural services, I think that this is appalling.'

'We've just introduced new services around Liskeard, and if any of these are affected it will be a dreadful blow. Some services would be replaced but this would be difficult for others.'