The wheels appear to have come off a plan to introduce a permanent bus service in the Meadow Rise area of Dawlish.
Residents had wanted a route to include Weech Road, Empsons Hill, Badlake Hill, Meadow Park and Meadow Rise.
After talks last year, and a £300 grant secured by County Cllr John Clatworthy, a 17-week trial was launched by the Teignbridge Ring and Ride scheme.
But the greatest number taking advantage of the three-day-a-week route never topped 19.
Coordinator John Adcock said such low numbers would require a subsidy of around £3,000 per year and so the trial was stopped in December.
'It's not that we don't want to do it but we are a charity and what would the Charity Commission say if we were putting so much into a scheme which supported so few people,' he said.
Mr Adcock added that some elderly customers had resented the £1 fare.
'The biggest problem is older people get free travel. they think we can do the same.'
Last week Sue Hill, coordinator at the Open Daw community information centre, told Dawlish Town Council that after a site visit by Cllr Clatworthy and county transport officer David Ovendon, a regular bus service had been approved.
'John Clatworthy came in here and said you've got it.
'Only later when David Ovendon realised that redirecting the shopper bus would leave St Mary's Cottages and Port Road without a service did they change their minds.
'Now those places are served by the go2 bus but Mr Ovendon is saying that buses are too big to come up Meadow Rise. He's changing the goal posts.
'I put it to you that we really need a bus service in that part of town.'
A Devon County Council spokesman said: 'We never gave a conditional agreement to operate a bus in this area as a route test found that the roads in the Meadow Rise and Weech Road area were unsuitable for a normal bus service.'