Two night bus services between Manchester and Bolton are to end from Sunday 3 April, First Manchester has announced.
The 8 and the 36 will no longer run in the evenings and into the early hours of the morning at weekends.
First re-announced the changes last week but said the decision was made in January 2015, after funding cuts to the service from Transport for Greater Manchester.
The bus company had been running each service without central funding but said the routes were not covering what they cost to run.
First said it was “a difficult decision to make” but confirmed the closures.
The 8 service runs from Manchester Piccadilly via Salford Shopping City in Pendleton, through Pendlebury to Bolton Moor bus station.
It current runs on Friday and Saturday evenings until 3.30am.
The 36 runs until 3.10am on weekends, connecting Manchester with Salford, Swinton, Walkden and Little Hulton.
Both services face the axe when new contracts come into place in April.
Now the last service on the 8 route will be at 11pm in the Bolton to Manchester direction and at 11.59pm from Manchester Piccadilly to Bolton.
On the 36 line, the final service between Bolton and Manchester will be at 10.45pm, and in the opposite direction at 11.55pm.
Read more: Bus services axed for Salford in wake of Guided Busway
Read more: New daytime services coming on track for Roe Green, Little Hulton, Swinton
A spokesman for First Manchester said: “A number of changes were made to the night bus network at the end of January 2015 when funding support was withdrawn to run the night bus network following a budget review at Transport for Greater Manchester.
“As a result First Manchester stepped in to take over the running of the Bolton number 8 and 36 services and the Leigh 39 night services.
“Despite doing our best to run these services on a purely commercial basis for over a year they are not covering the costs of operation and reluctantly we’ve had to take the decision to withdraw them 8 (Bolton), 36 (Bolton) and 39 (Leigh) night services from April 3.
“We’ve done our best to minimise inconvenience for customers by looking at alternative service options such as the new Vantage which offers a last bus at midnight to Leigh.
“We’ll also continue looking at further opportunities to expand other services to meet demand.”
Main image by mcmillant75 via Flickr
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