Dewsbury, Heckmondwike and Cleckheaton face being 'cut off' in the evening due to major reduction in bus services

The campaign will see hundreds of local residents in Yorkshire email their metro mayor and council leaders demanding action to help stop some of the cuts coming from the private operators in October.

The move comes as the region's bus companies are set to withdraw fully 26 routes, with a further 25 facing major reductions with no services past 7pm, sparking fears that places like Dewsbury, Heckmondwike and Cleckheaton could be cut off in the evenings.

The emails sent by campaigners argue that “a publicly owned and run bus company could plug the gaps and provide a guaranteed minimum service level, no matter what the private bus companies decide to cut next”.

West Yorkshire would not be the first local authority to buy up a bus company after Pembrokeshire Council bought a small operator earlier this year.

Matthew Topham, a campaigner at Better Buses for South Yorkshire, said: “For decades we’ve been privatising the profits on West Yorkshire’s buses and nationalising the losses.

“Bus companies have been free to cut corners on reliability, hike fares at five times the rate of inflation, and pay out hundreds of millions in dividends.

“But now the network is in freefall, they expect the public to pick up the pieces.

"It’s time that we own the buses and run at least some of them on a not-for-profit basis for the benefits of our communities, not unaccountable shareholders.”