AS LYDNEY Dial-a-Ride employees we are very concerned

that the Forest of Dean District Council is no longer

prepared to issue our passengers with concessionary

tokens which can be used to pay fares on our vehicles.

Free bus passes are still available to anyone over 60 for

use on public transport. These have never been available

to those who opted for concessionary tokens.

By and large our passengers are elderly and/or

disabled and often live far from a bus route. It ha always

seems iniquitous that those who are able-bodied can

access public transport for free whenever they wish

(within the specified hours) whilst those who are not have

only been given £25 worth of travel per year with Dial-a-

Ride. Surely their need to get from one place to another is

just as great.

The Council has now decided that even the limited

assistance of tokens is to be stopped. We all understand

the need for cuts in expenditure but how can they justify

their position in this matter? Able-bodied pensioners who

may even still be working can have free transport, the

disabled cannot? Frankly, this is discriminatory. Do they

not consider the needs of our customers to be as

important as those of the free bus pass holders?

This decision has been one that individual councils

have been allowed to make for themselves. In the case of

Stroud District Council, they have decided to continue

issuing the Dial-a-Ride customers with tokens. In their

wisdom, our Forest of Dean District Council has

withdrawn the tokens and, in effect, left those that need

us to fend for themselves.

Many of our customers are, in one way or another,

severely limited in what they can do. Many are equally

limited in the amount of disposable income available to

them. Our fares are well below those of a taxi but even so

the cost of travelling with us – say once a week for a

doctor's appointment – is a goodly sum over a year. Does

the Council honestly think it is fair to limit travel for those

who really need us while allowing all other pensioners to

travel for free? Perhaps they think that people who are

blind or arthritic or in wheelchairs should not be allowed

to go shopping or visit friends or leave their care home for

the day in order to spend time with their families.

We urge Forest of Dean District Council to re-think

their decision and reinstate concessionary tokens.

– Signed by 20 Dial-a-Ride employees.

COUNCIL COMMENT...

A spokesman for the Forest of Dean District Council said:

"From April, responsibility for running the concessionary

fares scheme will transfer from district councils to county

councils. This means all the funding we received for the

service from central government will transfer to the

County Council. This includes the funding we put into

travel tokens which was also transferred back to

government for funding the scheme at county level."