LATE buses introduced to reduce early hours trouble among city centre revellers have been axed.

Operator Go North-East said the five weekend services from Durham City were not used enough.

The Durham Night Bus was launched in July and ran for the final time in the early hours of yesterday.

It was introduced to meet concerns about the rising amount of trouble and anti-social behaviour in the city's North Road, where there are two nightclubs and late-closing bars.

Regent Inns, owners of the 700-capacity Walkabout Australian theme pub in the former Robins cinema, paid £40,000 towards the cost of the scheme's first six months.

The company won its licence at appeal in the face of strong opposition from police and residents, and one of the conditions was to take measures to disperse customers leaving in the early hours.

Regular bus services stop at about 11pm and with bars remaining open until 1am, there are long taxi queues where trouble often flares.

The late night buses - the last one leaving Durham at 2.15am on Saturdays and Sundays - took revellers who had bought tickets in advance to the suburbs of the city and outlying villages, and to Chester-le-Street.

Police hailed the introduction of the service as making an important contribution to safety in the early hours.

A Go North-East spokes-man said there had been hopes of extending the scheme beyond the first six months but Government funding had not been obtained.

"Patronage levels did not reach sufficient levels to sustain the service and efforts to obtain enough funding to allow the service to continue have proved unsuccessful,'' he said.