THE council has agreed there will be no further reductions in funding for Dial-A-Ride, but recent cuts will not be reversed.

Last month the door to door disability bus service saw its budget slashed by more than 50 per cent, down to £146,000 from £311,000.

It meant there will now be no service before 9am or after 4.30pm during the week, the Saturday service will also cease.

Staff are facing the prospect of losing their jobs and a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the organisation as they are yet to understand what the full ramifications of the reductions will be.

The funding decision was part of Swindon Borough Council’s need to cut between £70m and £80m from their budgets by 2020.

A recent bus strategy document released by the council said that by 2020 they would no longer be able to provide any funding to Dial-A-Ride whatsoever as they moved towards eliminating all subsidised transport spending across the borough.

But now, after a rare example of cross-party cooperation between Labour and Conservative councillors, the service’s long term future looks slightly less desperate.

Last night, the full council debated a petition signed by more than 4,000 people opposing the Dial-A-Ride cuts.

In response, the cabinet member responsible for transport, Dale Heenan, moved a motion which said: “This council supports cabinet’s view that there be no further funding reductions to Swindon Dial-A-Ride.”

This will not reverse the cuts of last month, but it offers hope for when the contract comes up for renegotiation again in two years.

Acknowledging that the service was a lifeline for the town’s most vulnerable, Coun Heenan said that the decision to reduce its funding was “not a nice one for council to have to take.”

But he said that in the absence of any viable alternative funding proposal, the budgetary strains on Swindon, like other local authorities across the country, made it unavoidable.

The motion had the support of Labour’s lead campaigner on the issue, Coun Derique Montaut.

In a passionate speech on behalf of Dial-A-Ride users, Coun Montaut described them as “the parents and grandparents of our community” and said the cuts to their service had been “savage.”

He acknowledged that not all in his party supported the joint motion, some had even accused him of selling out, but that cross-party cooperation was the only way forward.

But Liberal Democrat councillor Stan Pajak spoke out against the motion, saying that it didn’t go far enough in stopping the damage caused by the cuts already agreed.

He recalled how he had run two marathons for Dial-A-Ride in previous years and how three Labour councillors at the time had even given up their allowance increases to donate to the cause.

Coun Pajak said: “The need for this service hasn’t gone away, it’s the opposite, it has increased.

“I believe in Dial-A-Ride and I think the people of Swindon do too - they want to see that reflected in how we spend our money and that does not appear in this motion.

“A 53 per cent cut is incredible. We need to have the guts to support Dial-A-Ride.”

The leader of the Labour group on the council, Jim Grant, voted to support the motion but added a voice of concern to the debate.

Coun Grant said: “This council needs to save at least another £45m by 2020 and we’re cutting Dial-A-Ride now - this is an essential service and the last sort of thing we should be cutting.

“But it would appear that it is the first thing to be cut. We have to ask how else the poor and the vulnerable of this town are going to have to suffer over the next three years.”

Four Labour councillors abstained on the motion.