Buses that take children to schools in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells have been cancelled just weeks before the start of the new term in September.

Arriva's 220/221 services from Addington and nearby Wrotham to the Bennett Memorial Diocesan School in Culverden Down, Tunbridge Wells, will not run from September onward.

Similarly the 267/268 from Hawkhurst, via Cranbrook, to schools in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells, including Tunbridge Wells Boys' Grammar School, have been cancelled.

A statement on the bus company's website blames the cancellations on a lack of passengers.

Arriva marketing manager Richard Lewis said: “Like all bus companies, we are a commercial business that is required to operate profitably. The services we have had to withdraw were carrying insufficient people to cover the cost of providing them and we are no longer able to sustain losses on these routes."

But as parents and teenage pupils took to social media to slam the decision and question how pupils would get to school, it was revealed that other companies had been lined up to take over the routes.

A spokesman for Benenden-based Hams Travel confirmed its vehicles would run along the 267/268 route and Kent County Council's young person's travel passes would be accepted.

School services 220 and 221 from the Wrotham area to the schools were already being run by another operator alongside Arriva services.

Seaford and District Motor Services, just over the border in East Sussex, will be running a half-hourly replacement service between Crowborough and Tunbridge Wells, also numbered 228/229.

The Lewes-based company confirmed this evening it will also take the KCC passes.

In addition, the Brighton and Hove bus company will continue to run their half-hourly service that links Tunbridge Wells, Eridge and Crowborough on its way to Brighton.