BUS passengers who live or work in St Helens can have comment on proposals to make major changes to the borough's bus network in the face of government cuts.

The proposals will be available to view and for people comment online until Friday, July 1 or via a drop- in event to be held at Church Square between 10am and 5pm on Tuesday, June 28.

A number of services on the supported network, which operate in the evenings and weekends thanks to public funding, are believed to be under review.

The latest round of consultation follows events in May which saw more than 600 people attend and more than 200 people offer their feedback on their frequency and pattern of bus use, including services publicly funded by Merseytravel, and what might make them use buses more.

St Helens is the second area to be reviewed as part of a wider review of the whole Liverpool City Region bus network over the next 12 months.

A Merseytravel statement read: "Historically bus routes have been considered on a piecemeal basis and the idea is to consider the commercial network and the supported network – that which relies on public subsidy via Merseytravel – as a whole for the first time to ensure it best reflects current working and living patterns, new developments and how they are served.

"This is one of the first undertakings of the Bus Alliance, a formal partnership with operators Arriva and Stagecoach, with the aim of transforming bus services to encourage more people to take the bus. However, bus reviews involve all bus operators.

"Part of the review has been looking at the current supported bus network and considering how increasingly limited public resources can be focussed where there is most need. 

"The detail for St Helens is still being worked through, however, the principles of the review will include working with the operators to extend or re-route some commercial services to cover areas previously served by publicly supported services.

"To make the network easier to understand there are also plans for services on the same routes to operate under the same number whatever the time of day where possible.

"Working with operators we will endeavour to offer passengers alternative provision available within their area if a service is removed or changed.

Any changes will come into effect in September 2016."

 Further details of the bus network reviews will be available on the Merseytravel website from Friday afternoon at www.merseytravel.gov.uk/busreview