Inequality in bus services needs to be addressed in Dorchester – town councillors have been told.

Cllr Stella Jones claims that while the Duchy's Poundbury estate is well served there are few services to the eastern side of the town, including the Came View estate and Fordington Fields.

"There are loads on one side of the town and virtually none at all on the other," she told a meeting of the town council's environment and planning committee.

Other councillors say the county town needs a bus hub, rather than a series of bus shelters on a narrow pavement along Trinity Street, with the South Station being suggested as a possible location.

There was also complaints about the lack of services to 'old' Poundbury, one of the town's largest housing areas.

Cllr Susie Hosford, who lives in Martinstown, said there should be further promotion of rural services while Cllr Rory Major, who lives in Compton Valance, said he saw no hope of a service at all where he lived.

Committee chairman Cllr Robin Potter said one of the things lacking from the Bus Back Better consultation document from Dorset Council was anything to do with promoting bus use – which he said would help keep reduce cars and pollution in the town centre.

The comments were made during a discussion about the consultation on bus services which Dorset Council has prepared after an offer from the Government last year to improve bus services across the country as part of the climate change programme.

When town councillors on the planning committee were asked to volunteer to give a consultation response on behalf of the town council, preferably by bus users, not one councillor admitted to using the town's buses.