"New concessionary bus travel must go further"
31/03/2008
Britain's biggest pensioner organisation has welcomed the introduction tomorrow (April 1) of free, off-peak bus travel for older people in England, but has called on the government to open immediate talks with the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Stormont to extend the concession to all parts of the UK.
The National Pensioners Convention (NPC) has been at the forefront of the campaign for concessionary travel for pensioners on all forms of public transport since 1997, and is keen that the new scheme is not used to portray pensioners as a drain on local government resources.
In a new briefing paper being issued tomorrow to over 1000 pensioner organisations across the country, the NPC re-states the benefits of concessionary travel as:
• Enabling older people to continue to lead independent lives and participate fully in their local communities
• Reducing car usage and pollution
• Boosting local economies with additional customers
• Providing social inclusion that can reduce the cost and need for health services
• Increasing the demand for services for all members of the community
However, whilst the new scheme is an improvement on existing provision, it still does not include community transport schemes such as dial-a-ride, travel to hospital appointments before 9.30am, carers who are accompanying disabled travellers, routes which have stops more than 15 miles apart, other countries in the UK or other forms of transport such as metros/trains and trams.
Peter Rayner, NPC transport advisor said: "The evidence showing the benefits of offering free bus travel to those aged 60 and over is widely acknowledged and includes greater independence and less social exclusion, growth for local economies, improved services for fare paying travellers by spreading the cost and reductions in demand for health and social services.
"Now is the time to extend these benefits right across the UK and on all forms of public transport. Nevertheless, older people do not wish to gain at the expense of other younger members of society, and any shortfall in funding for the scheme from central or local government must not be used to portray pensioners as the problem.
"Many local councils," concludes Peter, "are rightly concerned about the somewhat doubftul methods of calculation and assumptions on cost put forward by bus operators. Many charge for a full journey from one end of a route to another, when the passenger might only be travelling a few stops. As a result of such sharp practices, costs of the new scheme have been over estimated and local authorities have started talking about having to make cuts in other services.
"This is not what pensioners want and a national scheme should be properly funded by central government, the grants for concessionary travel should be ring-fenced to ensure the councils spend it properly and the Department for Transport should have tighter controls on the charges made by bus operators."