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Free bus and rail travel for the oldies from next April ??
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What about Scotland please? I will be 60 in March so when can I apply? Yippee free bus passes and cheap meals and a couple of quid knocked off my haircut. Hope no one gives it to me tho cos I'm so vain I want them to believe that I am not 60 lol. Taffy0
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What about Scotland please? I will be 60 in March so when can I apply? Yippee free bus passes and cheap meals and a couple of quid knocked off my haircut. Hope no one gives it to me tho cos I'm so vain I want them to believe that I am not 60 lol. Taffy
Go to your local library and pick up the forms for the bus pass, you need a photograph. Too late for the winter heating allowance I think you need to be 60 by September and don't forget to phone the pension people to say if you are going to take your pension now or defer, you'll get a leaflet through about it
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I still think its a green issue, too many cars on the road, so the guvment has to do something.
It certainly is a moneysaving issue. £1000 quid a year issue in my case, allowing for depreciation and so on.
Apart from taxis, I have yet to investigate the local charity bus service, think it takes wrinkly folks to and from day centres or something like that.
No way am I gonna pay huge standing costs just to do 20 mile a week.0 -
I was speaking to a man in Scotland last week who quoted from a local leaflet. and told me that people living in Scotland already have free bus travel in the whole of Scotland and they will also be entitled to free travel in England & Wales from next April. I do not know if this is true but it seems a little unfair if it is. People living in England will not be able to travel free in Scotland so why should they be free to travel in England,0
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You busy, Margaret, yes cars are very convenient, maybe I was premature in getting rid of mine.
Tho my bus stops are near and have already done a dummy run to two hospitals, went well, tho if really bad would beg a lift with relatives or neighbours, or god forbid the ambulance.
B ut at £1 a mile,and all the road hassle, let someone else take the strain.0 -
I was speaking to a man in Scotland last week who quoted from a local leaflet. and told me that people living in Scotland already have free bus travel in the whole of Scotland and they will also be entitled to free travel in England & Wales from next April. I do not know if this is true but it seems a little unfair if it is. People living in England will not be able to travel free in Scotland so why should they be free to travel in England,
I think you'll find that concessionary travel in Scotland enables users (be they young or old) to travel into England such as Carlise but as far as I know not onwards throughout England.
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/defaultpage1221cde0.aspx?pageID=40
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/regional/buses/concessionary/0 -
I intend when I'm 60 and back in the Uk to have a bus pass AND a car. I don't see why it has to be one or the other.
The bus pass will be ideal for local travel and to/from the city centre, and the car for longer journeys. My husband will use the car most of the time (I don't think he knows where the bus stop is or how to pay the fare), but I'm sure he will have his bus pass too just in case he ever needs it or wants to use it.
It doesn't have to be either/or, it can be and.(AKA HRH_MUngo)
Member #10 of £2 savers club
Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology: Terry Eagleton0 -
It's costing a fortune, these bus passes, can't see Gordon Brown putting up with that.
Perhaps what he means by the UK being more green, first the carrot, then the stick.
One thing I have noticed since walking, you can smell the exhausts, protected when IN the car.0 -
Well I have a motorbility car, and have found it very useful, but in the last three months owing to ill-health I haven't been able to drive it.I also have a bus pass, but find that I only use it very occasionally.
The buses locally are not very frequent, and seem to turn up as and when they feel like it.The only bus that runs dead on time is the one going to Bluewater, which is about 20 miles from where I live, and a huge shopping centre.
I have used that a couple of times and the sevice is good to get there, but the return journey can be a nightmare as often in the afternoon it gets caught in the traffic on the M2 and runs late which means it terminates in Chatham, and I then have to wait around for another bus to get me to my home village of Rainham. Chatham bus station is not a place an old woman like me wants to hang around in, its very dark and gloomy and sometime not very safe. I usually phone my DD to pick me up from there rather than wait for the connection.There is a nice new shopping outlet in Chatham, at the Dockyard, but to get there it also means going into Chatham and then getting another bus out to the dockyard.I would love to be able to hop on a bus and go there as there is a nice cinema there as well , but I just don't fancy the two bus journeys there and again on the return.
Everywhere you go in Kent you seem to have to get a bus in to the town, then another one out again .I like Maidsone for shopping, but again its a two bus job.As for Canterbury well thats just an impossible journey unless you take a train. Hopefully after Christmas I shall be back behind the wheel again.I didn't realise until I was laid up how dependant one becomes on ones car.Mind you if I lived back in London there would be no way I would bother with a car as the buses are a lot better there than out in the sticks0 -
We made a decision today, simply because we realised it is only five months before we can travel free.
In our particular case, we have never had a licence. But this has never stopped us from anything. We use public transport for daily, occasional and holiday use. Either bus, coach, rail, plane or helicopter and wheneever we are entitled to a concession, we use it.
We have three buses an hour to/from town, 15mins service to towns close-by for which we pay £1, and the decision we made is that come April, each journey that would have cost a £1, we will put in a pot and use at the end of the year.
We have nothing but praise for public transport and all that it offers and for what it's worth, we find it stress free.
To have lived through no worries regarding parking, parking fees, licence, mot, insurance, bumbs and scrapes , petrol costs and anything else associated with vehicle ownership has been a blessing.This is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0
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