ALMOST 4,000 people have signed a petition to Transdev asking it to reverse its decision to axe its Red Express/X41 from Accrington to Manchester city centre.

Last week the bus operator announced it was scrapping the service from January 26 because of low passenger numbers.

The Change.org petition says: “The proposed scrapping of the X41 bus service from Accrington to Manchester is going to have a massively detrimental impact.

“Not only is this going to affect many commuters who rely heavily on this service to get to and from work, it would impact massively on school and college students.

“The X41 has been a safe, reliable means of public transport for so many for so long and to suddenly drop the service is simply not acceptable. Let us get this decision overturned.

A Transdev spokeswoman said: “Unfortunately although a lot of people are signing the petition, not enough are using Red Express and Red 4, which means we’re losing £300,000 per year on these routes.

“Losing so much money isn’t sustainable. We’ve worked hard to find a solution that doesn’t mean leaving people without a service.”