More Cash for Torbay and Concessionary Passes

From the HERALD EXPRESS

TORBAY has won an extra £590,000 towards the cost of concessionary bus passes for pensioners.

After months of hard lobbying, the Government has recognised that the scheme, which has got millions of pensioners out and about, has left some authorities such as Torbay out of pocket.

But the proposed extra Government money for Torbay is for next year and will not plug this year's funding gap of almost £2million, nor make up for losses in past years from the free passes scheme.

Meanwhile Teignbridge Council has been told it will lose £275,000 even though it says it is more than £1million out of pocket since the scheme started.

Torbay MP Adrian Sanders has welcomed the Government's decision to consult authorities on changes to the central funding for the free passes and the £590,000 extra grant which has been suggested for Torbay.

Now, the MP has challenged Torbay Council to take a tougher line negotiating with bus companies over their fare subsidy to cut costs further. He estimates that if Torbay was to drive a harder bargain with companies such as Stagecoach, the overspend could be cut to around £700,000 to £800,000 of which the £590,000 would account for a big chunk next year.

Mayor Nick Bye has welcomed the extra funding but said if the council cuts the bus company subsidies further the firms could withdraw day-time services. Nearly half of bus passengers in Torbay have free passes. He said they would be lobbying for extra help on top of the £590,000.

Transport Minister Sadiq Khan yesterday announced the funding changes, subject to nationwide consultation on changes to the scheme which could result in even more funding.

He said his officials recognised there might be genuine funding shortfalls and some authorities might have been receiving excessive grant.

"I am aware of around 30 authorities who may have a genuine cause for concern," he said but added they aimed to change as few payments as possible to minimise the impact on local authorities' finance.

The plan is to reduce payments to London and 63 authorities outside the capital.

He said of the increase to Torbay's grant: "This funding should be more than sufficient to cover the previously forecast shortfall for 2010/11 and I hope this demonstrates the Government has listened to and taken seriously the concerns of Torbay."

Mr Sanders said months of meetings with ministers and questions in the House of Commons had finally paid off.

He said: "The Government has held up its end of the bargain in re-looking at this funding formula. The council now needs to cut down the rest of the shortfall by re-negotiating its contract with bus companies as we discovered Torbay pays around 70 per cent of fare costs compared to the 50 per cent average of other councils. The Department for Transport claimed that this is what is creating most of Torbay's budget shortfall.

Mr Bye, who also lobbied the Government with Mr Sanders, welcomed the extra funding but said it would not help with the £2m shortfall looming this year.

"The news of extra funding is certainly quite encouraging, " he said. "But even if we reduced our subsidy to Stagecoach we would still be short of around £800,000, and even with the extra Government funding we would be £200,000 or so short which otherwise could be spent on children's services. Consequently we will still make our case to Government and it would be helpful if we could do a joint representation with Mr Sanders."

He explained Torbay paid bus operators slightly more because a higher proportion of off-peak passengers in the area are on free passes.

The council had saved money by withdrawing subsidy payments for some routes as more people were now using the buses. They also wanted to avoid the risk of companies going to appeal on the payments and winning and then having to find more money. Last year Stagecoach won such an appeal for the Devonwide scheme.

Mr Bye said: "It is a highly complicated scheme but if we had not been slightly more generous with the bus companies, the pensioners would not have had buses to use after 9.30am."

A spokesman for Stagecoach said they did not wish to comment at this stage.

It is thought in the South Hams the Government share of bus fares cash looks like coming to £410,000 — just £6,000 up on this year. South Hams Council's deputy leader Bill Hitchins said it was what the council had been expecting and had budgeted for.

The number of passengers travelling by bus in Torbay rose to 7.8 million in 2008/09, out of those 3.7 million were concessionary pass holders.