NEWPORT council has said it will not subsidise any bus services over the Christmas Bank Holidays despite concerns from Age Concern and city centre traders.

Newport Transport says running buses will not be commercially viable with extra staffing costs and what they predict will be a lack of users on the Bank Holidays.

But many people disagree, with the start of the Christ-mas sales on the Bank Holiday Monday, while rugby fans who want to get to the match between the Dragons and the Cardiff Blues will have to find other ways of travelling to the ground.

Newport Transport operations director Ross Jones said they notified the council's head of engineering Brian Kemp in June about their intentions for the Christmas period.

Mr Jones said: "If the council feels that there is a social need for a bus service to meet concerns then they can put a contract out to tender or subsidise a service."

But despite the concerns of Age Concern director David Murray that the needs of the elderly had been 'overlooked', the council says it expects the bus use to be "abnormally low".

A council spokeswoman said: "The council understands that Newport Trans-port in common with other operators in the Newport area have elected not to run services in the additional bank holidays of 27/28 Dec and 2/3 Jan for commercial reasons.

"However, as bus patronage on these particular days is expected to be abnormally low it is considered that the level of subsidy required would be much better utilised on supporting other socially necessary public transport services."

Other bus companies across Gwent have said they will also be taking a four-day break in their services from late on Christmas Eve to Wednesday December 29.

Taxis and limited train services will be operating over the Christmas break while in Cardiff a bus service will be running on both the Bank Holiday Monday and Tuesday.