Council Sees Sense Over Free Bus Passes (Scarborough and Whitby Liberal Democrats)

Scarborough and Whitby Liberal Democrats <info@scarboroughandwhitbylibdems.org.uk>

Council Sees Sense Over Free Bus Passes

November 3, 2010 9:21 AM

Liberal Democrats at County Hall are pleased that proposals to limit the use of free bus passes are likely to be ditched.

At present retired people in the county can travel for free between 9am and 6am the next morning.

In July the Conservative-run North Yorkshire County Council proposed to limit travel to between 9:30am and 11pm. This is the minimum it has to offer by law, and Tory bosses thought they could save £400,000 a year by doing it.

But Cllr Bill Hoult, Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems at County Hall, warned them that the savings would be nowhere near this, as many people would simply start their journeys 30 minutes later.

A report to the Council's Executive, which meets next Tuesday, appears to have come to the same conclusion as Cllr Hoult. The report says:

"The conclusion from our consultants is that most people would transfer their trip to an eligible service and thus any saving to the council would be very small."

The report recommends that the present system of concessionary passes being valid between 9am and 6am the following morning be retained.

Cllr Hoult said:

"I am very pleased that the report backs up what I said at the time, and what I repeated to the Harrogate Area Committee on 28 October."

"The previous proposal would have seriously hit the rural areas, where there is less choice of service."

"We must accept that cuts have to be made in the present climate but must not rush into false economies which help neither the County Council finances nor the people."