Concessionary Fares (Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats)

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats <info@oxfordshirelibdems.org.uk>

Concessionary Fares

January 12, 2010 12:10 PM
By Cllr Zoe Patrick in Council

By this motion, we are trying to get some consistency across Oxfordshire on concessionary travel, especially as County Councils are to take over the operation of the scheme from District Councils. We hope that by having some consistency across the whole county in the future, the whole scheme will be much more accessible and fairer for all our older citizens, and this motion is attempting to help that process.

As we all know, the national concessionary bus pass scheme is hugely popular, and indeed because of its popularity and the government's inability to fully support the administration of the scheme, some of our District Councils have been in deficit. I would hope that by signing the petition on the Downing Street website http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/commtransport/ and by trying to rationalise what happens in Oxfordshire across all districts, we can try and get a fully funded scheme.

Because Oxfordshire is such a rural county, many older people, especially those with disabilities, cannot use commercial bus companies, simply because they do not operate in many villages. How many times do we hear people say they would love to have a concessionary bus pass - if only they had a bus to use it on! However, some community transport operators do recognise this problem, and I am hoping that by supporting this motion, we can ensure that these community transport schemes can be used by pensioners with their concessionary passes.

I understand that the Octabus Dial A Ride scheme does operate in most districts and they also recognise the bus pass scheme. However, South Oxfordshire does not sign up to this for some reason, so pensioners there are totally reliant on community transport providers and commercial operators. The Vale, on the other hand, does sign up to Octabus and does recognise concessionary travel passes in both the Stanford in the Vale and Faringdon community buses. This is helpful. West Oxfordshire, on the other hand, has many community schemes and it is not clear which, if any, recognise concessionary fares - though they do sign up to Octabus. Cherwell operate their own Dial a Ride from what I understand, and also have many community transport operators.

However, you will get the picture that it is all a bit of a mix n' match and this only adds to the confusion. Pensioners have told me that they value the concessionary pass scheme because it gives them so much freedom, enabling them to lead much more active and fuller lives, but it would be good to see this extended to those who are frail, disabled and who live in rural isolation.

There is also some inconsistency regarding carers who travel with those with disabilities - again some Districts recognise this and allow carers to travel free, whilst others are not so generous. This, too, needs clarification which I hope will come in as part of the package, when County Councils take this over.

This motion is not contentious, I am sure we must all agree that it can only help to clarify and support a scheme which has benefits to our elderly residents, but it needs to be simple and consistent over the whole county. This motion goes some way to enabling this to happen. Please support it.