PASSENGERS fear they will be left stranded with a vital bus service running through Frinton and Walton set to be scrapped.

New Horizon Travel will axe both bus routes running through the towns from the end of February.

The Frating-based bus company will be withdrawing the number 13 and 15 services.

John Halls of Walton Community Project office said he has been bombarded with enquiries from concerned passengers.

He said: “The bus service here is absolutely vital. We have a lot of elderly people who have no other way of getting around.

“They are all worried and upset that they might be stranded if the buses stop running."

Horizon’s number 13 bus starts at the Naze in Walton and runs down through the town and out to the Triangle Shopping Centre, before heading through the Frinton gates and down to the seafront.

The number 15 route covers Frinton, Walton and Clacton, as well as the villages in between.

First Bus runs a service in the area which covers a similar route to Horizon’s number 15.

But no other buses will cover the route of the number 13 once it has been axed.

Ray Connor, managing director of New Horizon Travel said: “It is a commercial service and unfortunately it is just not economically viable and we have to move on. Over the past few months numbers have dropped and we cannot sustain it."