Sir, The over-60s bus pass (report, Mar 28) was never intended for use on National Express services, or holiday coach tours, where more than half the seats can be booked in advance. The examples given in the report are coach services, not local bus services — and it was always local bus services for which these passes were intended. It should, therefore, still be possible to travel from one end of England to the other by normal local service buses.

One of the problems with the pass is that only some authorities adhere to the statutory start time of 9.30am, even for their own residents. Some authorities allow their own residents to start using it at 9am (but residents from another area can only use the pass from 9.30am), while others allow travel at any time for anyone. If a pass user goes away on holiday, it is reasonable to expect that the same rule is applied all over England. In some places the pass is acceptable on ferry services or in taxis, but in most places it isn’t.

Another problem is that it has never been specified in the legislation how much an operator should receive from the council, with different authorities contributing varying amounts. On a journey that crosses boundaries, this can only cause confusion, and the operator will be sorely tempted to run services where it gains the greatest recompense from the council.

The operator should be reimbursed at the full-fare rate for the journey undertaken. It is for this reason that many rural services are being cut — the operator gains insufficient reimbursement to make it pay, and many councils are so short of money that they cannot afford to pay the operators to run the services.

If the level of reimbursement was specified in the legislation, at the full fare, then operators would have a better chance of making sufficient profit to invest in newer vehicles and help them to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act.

Peter Davies

Netley Abbey, Hants

Sir, From the figures quoted in your report it appears that a £10-per-year charge for each England-wide pass would easily yield sufficient revenue to meet the shortfall in local authority funding of fares-free travel for us over-60s, even if it caused some to refuse the pass. The great majority of pass holders would, I suspect, agree that this is a small price to pay. Free passes could, however, still be made available to those who require travel only within their own residential district.

Barry Goodchild

Wallington, Surrey

Sir, The original idea was that all the empty off-peak buses could be used by pensioners at no cost to anyone. How could this ever be a burden for council taxpayers?

Jeremy Oliver

Ness, Cheshire

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