BUS passengers were left stranded on Saturday after a local coach company went into liquidation. Quantock Heritage, which ran the iconic open-top 300 service between Minehead and Lynmouth in the summer months, as well as services from Wiveliscombe and Cotford St Luke, went bust at the weekend. The first many passengers knew of the problem was when they were left standing at a bus stop in Minehead. Lynmouth hotelier Clifford Parker said his son Zach had been hoping to catch the 300 bus to go to Porlock Carnival on Saturday night. But he and around 40 other passengers had to abandon their plans when the bus failed to turn up. "I contacted the tourist information centre in Minehead and was told they had gone into liquidation. "It's a real shame as it was a big tourist attraction and will be a great loss to both Devon and Somerset," Mr Parker said. Quantock Heritage used to operate a wider range of services under the banner Quantock Motor Services. But that part of the business was sold to Taunton firm Berrys Coaches - which is not affected by the liquidation order - while the historic fleet was retained under the umbrella of new company Quantock Heritage. The heritage company operated both vintage vehicles for hire and more modern vehicles on the commercial routes 300/39 from Minehead to Lynmouth, 25A from Cotford St Luke to Taunton and 10 from Langley Marsh and Wiveliscombe to Wellington. Quantock Heritage also operated a number of school bus services through contracts with Somerset County Council. It is believed schools were alerted to the impending collapse at the end of last week and county council staff acted quickly to ensure the various school routes were covered by different operators. A spokesman for the county council said the liquidation order against Quantock Heritage had come into effect at midnight on Sunday. The spokesman added: "It is with regret that Quantock Heritage has ceased to be able to provide school and local bus services. "Once we became aware of the problems we acted quickly to ensure services to our schools and other contracted services could be covered by other operators. "We thank the other local operators for stepping in to cover these routes at short notice. "We are investigating if the commercial routes are able to be covered by an alternative service." Quantock Heritage declined to make a statement about the liquidation order but said the vintage fleet remained operational, only the modern services had been dropped.