Are you 60 or over and do you fancy a free trip to the seaside? Grab your coat because this weekend is your last opportunity to take advantage of a benefit that the Government is quietly withdrawing.

From next Wednesday - April Fool's Day - bus passes issued to the elderly and disabled will no longer be valid on hundreds of services.

A year ago, ministers trumpeted the Government's generosity in giving 11 million people free travel on all local buses and coaches in England. Now pass holders will once again have to pay on coaches, park-and-ride buses, open-top bus tours and any services intended “primarily for tourism”.

Since last April, the Government has spent more than £1 billion funding the passes. But there is still a shortfall in many areas and dozens of local authorities have had to increase council tax or cut services to reimburse bus companies.

The bus pass has been so successful in popular tourist destinations, such as North Norfolk and along the South Coast, that bus companies have had to put on extra services. Paying passengers on services into Swanage, Dorset, have complained of having to stand all the way because all the seats on double deckers were taken by over-60s pass holders.

Under the existing rules, any bus or coach service with stops less than 15 miles apart is considered a local service and the operator must accept bus passes. But the Government has rewritten the rules and, from April 1, passes will not be eligible on any service on which more than half the seats can be booked.

Passes will no longer be valid on dozens of National Express coaches, including from London to Brighton, Eastbourne to Portsmouth, Plymouth to Penzance, Hereford to Swindon, Blackpool to Preston, and Newark to Grimsby.

It will become much harder for holders to travel from one end of England to the other without paying, a feat already achieved by dozens of pensioners. Pat Towle, a grandmother of five from Chudleigh, Devon, spent a fortnight last summer travelling free for almost 1,000 miles from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Land's End.

Campaigners for the elderly and disabled fear that local authorities and bus companies will reclassify many more services to make pensioners pay.

David Sinclair, the head of policy at Help the Aged, said: “We are extremely concerned that what was supposed to be a national scheme may be being whittled away. These changes to the rules should not be exploited to withdraw the right to concessionary travel on services on which the elderly rely. One in eight older people describe themselves as often or always lonely and access to transport is vital to tackling that isolation.”

On Monday the Liberal Democrats will try to block the new rules in Parliament by challenging the statutory instrument laid by Paul Clark, the junior Transport Minister.

John Leech, the Liberal Democrat transport spokesman, said: “The Government seems to be trying to cut down on the use of free bus passes by the back door without any parliamentary scrutiny. It says that local authorities could choose to fund these services themselves but many ... cannot afford it.”

A Department for Transport spokesman said that the bus pass was intended for use only on local services, not on longer routes. “These changes will clarify which types of service are outside of the spirit of the national concession, reducing potential for any confusion over whether a service is eligible.”

Travel by numbers

11 million the number of bus pass holders in England

£1billion the annual amount spent by the Government on the bus pass

£600,000 the average shortfall in bus pass funding among 70 local authorities

9.30am-11pm the times passes are valid Monday to Friday (they can be used at any time at weekends and on public holidays)

39 the number of buses that a holder would need to catch to travel free from Land's End to Berwick-upon-Tweed

Sources: DfT; Lib Dems; bus timetables

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