1:00pm Wednesday 8th September 2010
By Chris Walker
A CALL by the boss of Oxford Bus Company to charge pensioners for their national concessionary bus pass has received a mixed reaction from elderly passengers.
Keith Ludeman, chief executive of the Go-Ahead Group, which runs the Oxford Bus Company, said the Government should introduce a one-off charge.
He said the fees, from over 60s, would help plug the £1bn a year running costs of the project.
The scheme, which allows pensioners and disabled passengers to travel on any local bus services in England, will fall under a major review of Government spending next month.
Mr Ludeman, who recently turned 60, said: “People would not object if it meant that this very popular scheme was able to continue.”
The call was welcomed by Roger Jenking, who completed a seven hour journey from Oxford to Crewe, in Cheshire, using only local buses on the first day of the scheme. The 62-year-old, from Joan Lawrence Place, Headington, Oxford, said the pass ought to be means-tested. He said: “Economically and socially it would make a lot of sense and it would be a way of making things more equal.
“People shouldn’t be using their pass for journeys of less than four stops. They should realise people have to pay.
“On the other hand, those who would lose their bus passes if they were means tested would just get back in their cars – and the environmental benefit would be lost.”
Mr Jenking, who uses his pass for journeys to Abingdon and Didcot three times a week, said he would be willing to pay £200.
However the idea was attacked by Bill Jupp, secretary of the retired members of the Unite union in Oxford.
Unite’s former boss, Jack Jones, campaigned for the bus pass for more than 30 years before his death last year.
Mr Jupp, 78, from Arlington Drive, Old Marston, Oxford, said: “It would be a disgrace to start charging for the pass.
“It was such a struggle to get the pass in the first place. The worst thing you can do as a pensioner is to be lonely, sat in your home doing nothing.
“Getting older people out their houses makes them healthier and takes away the burden on the NHS.”
Department for Transport spokesman Rachel Fowell said: “The right to free bus travel for both older and disabled people is enshrined in primary legislation.
“The Government is focusing its efforts on finding efficiencies through reforming the administrative and reimbursement arrangements of the scheme rather than by cutting back on the entitlement offered to older people.”
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