A fresh call has been made to improve bus services in Ashby due to the town's rapid growth.

As things stand, large parts of Ashby do not get served by public transport.

Some people face a lengthy walk into town depending on where they live.

And long-time resident and activist Sue Richardson has taken steps to address the situation.

"For the past year, I've been working with the Town Council as a local person interested in dealing with the transport issues in the town. We have shaped a Transport Needs Assessment to investigate how, when and to what destination people need access to local transport," she said.

"We have reached out to a number of groups in the town for information and support, but the project is at a standstill, owing to lack of Town Council staff capacity.

"I am actively seeking allies to take this forward and am aware that other groups are interested and may already have begun some initiatives."

Sue believes Ashby's increased size means that the lack of public transport within the town makes it even more of an issue.

"There's a serious issue about external public transport links but the one we thought we could deal with first was the service that can get people where they absolutely need to be - it's not optional to get to the pharmacist or the health centre, to get some social life, shopping or whatever you want," she added.

"The crazy thing is that many new estates are being built and bus stops installed on them, and yet I don't think there are any plans to run services through them

"It may be that the existing operators can be persuaded to divert off the main roads, but this would be a partial solution.

"There are two estates near me and they're getting bigger. If you are on the far end of one of those estates and you are a mother at home with two small children and a double buggy, you face a long walk into town and a struggle back with shopping, unless you have a car.

"A walk to get those kids to any kind of social place is a decent walk, and you may not be able to do it.

"There are other areas where you may have elderly people who will have stopped driving or never driven, and they are really stuck, unless they can call a taxi, which is expensive.

"I'm mostly concerned about movement within the town as Ashby is growing all the time. But there is also this issue of 'How do you get out of this town'?

"You can't work in Leicester or Derby and get to work on time by bus or home easily. There used to be an hourly X99 service linking Birmingham and Nottingham through Ashby. Now, if you use public transport, it takes three hours.

"It's utterly ridiculous."