NEW CONCESSIONARY LOCAL BUS SCHEMEs

Stuart_W

Apologies if this has already been raised.

On 1st April 2006 new "minimum standards" are being imposed by central government on the provision of concessionary bus fare schemes run by local authorities. They are:

As a minimum, off peak bus travel within the district / unitary authority / PTE area must be FREE.


See here:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_localtrans/documents/page/dft_localtrans_610098.hcsp

Hurrah for many people - but this will produce many anomolies and probably make big headlines in April if local authorities are unable to avoid some of the problems it could also cause at the same time.

In my county for example - Cambridgeshire - like many, a half fare scheme is run throughout the county. However, the new scheme may only operate at DISTRICT level - meaning whilst some journies become free, all journies before 9:30am will probably double in price, and as a county that is made up of a couple of cities, a handful of market towns and loads of small villages, district boundaries often "randomly" split up the county - to travel to the next village could be expensive or travel to the a nearly market town no longer half price but full price. The councils are trying to come up with a solution but funding will be limited and the cost of the minimum requirements of the free travel may be expensive enough. There is also a problem where some smaller villages may only have a bus before 9:30am anyway. This is probably one of the easier to address, though. Councils have the authority to add to the minimum requirements for the concessionary scheme - but they need to fund those additional bits.

So the "Pensioner's bus fares doubles" headlines may not be avoidable. Does anyone have any news of progress in their county prior to the April implimentation date?

the_devil_made_me_do_it

is this scheme gonna be country wide then??

The local transport service where I live is very poor, so any improvemment or shake up would be welcomed.

sparkymark_3

appears to be limited/ no info. in Norfolk which is poor considering new scheme starts in 6 weeks !

martindow

Yes it's a national scheme
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_localtrans/documents/divisionhomepage/610413.hcsp
which offers half price off peak travel as a minimum for eligible people. There will still be differences between authorities as they can offer more generous schemes if they wish.

Stuart_W

Thank you for the replies.
There still seems to be very little awareness of this national initiative, and it hits the streets in a few weeks. My county still seem undecided on whether to extend the scheme.