Last night, a spokesman for Wirral Council confirmed “that an interim arrangement has been put in place with Merseycare Transport Services Ltd, a new social enterprise which has formed in the wake of Wirral Community Transport (WCT) entering administration”.

He said: “Merseycare will take responsibility for transporting 108 children and 114 adults to various facilities across the borough to access both council and private sector services.

“This will be the case until the council has put together a full procurement procedure to replace the WCT contract, which we anticipate will be done during the summer months.

“We at the council are delighted to be able to provide both continuing support to those who have critical transport needs in Wirral, and advice to Merseycare, which is an excellent example of an emerging social enterprise.”

Mike Horne, chairman of the recently created Wirral Bus Operators Association, said some of his organisation’s members had stepped in to help and had been supplying extra bus services to help out the council.

But he said the newly-created organisation represented unfair competition for his members and pledged to use “every means within my power” to ensure fair competition for other bus operators in Wirral.