Kent County Council is facing complaints about a series of public meetings planned to discuss rural bus services - as some are scheduled to take place at times when people cannot use buses to get to them or get home afterwards.

All the meetings are timetabled to take place between 7pm and 9pm but some who want to attend have pointed out that they won’t be able to do so - because the buses they would use have already stopped running or will have done before the meeting is finished.

The council has programmed a series of 11 public meetings across the county as part of its “big conversation” on plans that could see some subsidised services reduced but others enhanced.

Susie Govett, an independent councillor for Folkestone and Hythe, said people from Lydd who want to attend a meeting scheduled for St Mary’s Bay Village Hall in Romney Marsh would be prevented from doing so as the last service was at 8.42pm.

Cllr Govett said: "It is not rocket science - you'd have thought someone might have looked at the timetables before deciding what time the meetings should be.

"It gives the impression that this is just a tick-box exercise rather than proper consultation.

"You'd think that they might want to talk to the people who stand to be affected."

Michael Kemp emailed Kent Online to say: “These meetings apparently involve mainly rural routes, or the lack of them.

"All these meetings are in the towns between 7 - 9 pm, when most of these buses do not run in rural areas.

"Are we supposed to slip on our jetpacks to get there?”

Many of the meetings are taking place in town centre venues but others are in more isolated rural areas.

Although KCC says any shake-up is not just about cutting back services, the budget for subsidising what are described as socially necessary bus services is to be reduced by more than £400,000 over the next two years.

A plan to save £2m through cuts to subsidies was scrapped after a backlash among residents and bus users and Kent MPs who warned that it would leave many isolated in areas where no other option to travel was available.

Cllr Mike Whiting, the cabinet member for transport, said he wanted to get feedback from bus users about existing services and ideas for alternatives before reaching any decisions.

“We want to explore how we can improve connectivity for our rural residents and assess the viability of offering different kinds of services.

"That’s why for the next couple of months we’re meeting with all stakeholders – residents, parish councils, operators – and running our “Big Conversation” programme to see what we could do and get feedback from the people that could run them and use them."