Families will benefit from more bus services after a company decided to “take a big risk”.

The W19 will now run from Muirfield Road in South Oxhey to North Bushey every 30 minutes.

It previously ran once every hour. 

But the service will be split into two parts. Buses will run between Watford town centre and North Bushey and the town centre and Carpenders Park. 

Transport bosses said the move could cut the number of late buses.

But campaigners are now calling for services to run later on the estate, because the last W19 bus will still be 6.15pm.

Tariq Mamood, manager of Red Rose, said: “The subsidies from the county council have been reduced but we have decided to go ahead on a commercial basis. We are taking a big risk.

“We are still getting a small amount of funding. If there was no funding, this service would have been removed. A number of services in the area have been reduced due to a lack of government funding.

“We have chopped the route up, so what will happen is a bus will run from North Bushey to the town centre, and another bus will run from the town to Carpenders Park.

“We were finding that with the one long route, if there was any traffic, particularly around the Bushey Arches area, it would affect the whole service. People were getting a delayed service.

“We are trying to increase the reliability of the service.”

Cllr Stephen Cox, Three Rivers District Council representative for South Oxhey, said: "Getting a bus every half an hour along Oxhey Drive and down Muirfield Road is no doubt an improvement, but it only puts things back to how they were when we had Arriva's number 2 service.

“The local Labour action team is pressing for early morning and later journeys on the W19 specifically and later buses, including the 8, across the estate."

The number 8 service, which runs from Abbots Langley to Mount Vernon Hospital, has been reduced and services have been axed after 7.30pm Monday to Saturday.

Bus users have told the Watford Observer they are being cut off from other areas in south west Hertfordshire because buses are not turning up.

Regular bus user and parish councillor Pam King said; "Three Rivers has funding available for better bus services and we need that to help restore, morning, evening and Sunday services. “We are doing all we can to bring that about and make things easier for residents who live a long way from the shops, station and doctors' surgeries."