WHILE the city’s taxpayers will be picking up the bill for the ballooning cost of pensioners’ bus passes, it looks like the elderly may eventually be counting the cost.

Oxford City Council is facing a £2.4m black hole because of a change to how the system is run, the disparity with how much the Government gives it, a new ruling on how much it must pay bus companies and simply the whole success of it.

The council has already had to tighten its belt severely because of other financial woes and now says it may have to do away with the discretionary 9am start. It is only required to pay for pensioners from 9.30am but it, along with other councils, generously brought it forward, partly because it would help people trying to make their regular hospital appointments.

It will be a great shame if the start is moved back. But from the council’s point of view, is it unreasonable when it is under such pressure that it should not look at anything it can do to ease the burden?

Time for the Government to review what it has put in place and fund our local bodies properly.