TRADERS have warned businesses could close down as a result of Kendal's controversial traffic experiment and a bus company is already taking action to win back passengers it has lost.

Small business owners and Stagecoach - the town's main bus service provider - reeled off a series of criticisms of the scheme, including negative impact on trade and a slump in take-up of bus services, at a special meeting of Kendal Traffic Steering Group.

George Inchmore, of the Federation of Small businesses, asked how many businesses needed to be adversely affected before the project was stopped.

He claimed 84 businesses across town objected to the scheme.

"This policy is somebody's ego against our livelihoods," he said.

In an effort to win back fares, Stagecoach announced this week that it is to cease using the bus station on Blackhall Road as the main stopping off point for its services and will instead revert back to using the lay-by outside Woolworths on Stricklandgate.

It also plans to run a less-frequent service on many of the routes in order to save costs.

Mr Barrett said Stagecoach had invested eight per cent more in services since the experiment went live but had suffered passenger losses of nine per cent.

He said the company was also disappointed that a package of improvements to the bus station and stops on Blackhall Road - shelters, timetable cases and seating - had not materialised and claimed this had also had a "detrimental" effect on services.

On Monday the company announced that from October 28, services 42 (Heron Hill) and 43 (Sandylands) will revert back to a two buses an hour service which will serve Stricklandgate; service 44 (Hallgarth) back to a three-bus-an-hour service that will no longer serve the bus station and services 45/445 (Burneside and Bowston) and 46 (Kirkbarrow/ Wattsfield and Collinfield) will all start on Stricklandgate.

Other routes will remain the same.

Rob Lawley, senior consultant with Capitadbs - the agency responsible for highways management and engineering activities for Cumbria County Council - said: "We are pleased that the town services are back in the main shopping street and we intend to work with Stagecoach to help them with the reliability of bus services.

We are going to have to talk to the company to see what improvements are needed in Stricklandgate in terms of shelters and seating."