Bus passes etc to remain

My goodness! What a load of *s! Daphnedill has a car! Ner ner! Actually, I didn't have a car for two years and I was more or less stuck indoors. I would have used any extra money to pay for taxis, because there weren't any buses. A bus pass would have been no use.

Quite frankly, the comments by two of you make me sick and show up what kind of people you are.

Thank you chelseabsby, yes i didn't put my question well did I ,

Yes Annie people who work can get the free bus pass. The qualification is age - now based on the female state pension age.

If they stopped the bus pass many of us would be getting our cars out and clogging up the roads. ( even more than they're clogged up)

Our bus fares are very expensive (over £2.00 to go a mile into town) and services are being cut because the local council have said they cannot keep paying for the bus pass fares. Lots of pensioners here and some of them use the buses every day, some go all over the county for days out, but unless the company get the pass fares paid the routes are not profitable enough to run as often as they did.

I live in a rural area Rigby, but do people who work get a bus pass?

I know that bus passes are staying at least for now but I am sure that those of us with decent bus routes will end up like many on here because we will not be able to afford to go as and when we want so the buses will stop running.

Yes ab it's really grim in rural areas if you can't afford to run a car. Round here it limits work opportunities for example. When we first moved here there was sn excellent local bus service - well we all know who got rid of that don't we?

It's the BBC putting a spin on how generous the WFA is - it's £300 for a couple over 80. I despair of much of the media at the moment

I'm getting confused at the press (BBC plus a couple of papers) mention of £300 WFA. isn't it £200 per household, split for a couple in receipt of retirement pension? Not sure what I'm missing.

And if one cannot afford to run a car Rigby?

Anya I quite agree, but when an aunt of mine was alive she needed that + the winter allowance and a Christmas bonus of around £300 from the place where she used to work to survive. Her pensions were so small that she needed it, she was lucky if she had £250 a month left for food and electricity. The rest was covered by her rent.

I agree re the bus and in my case, tube journey paid for, it is very expensive to travel by tube in London. I am fortunate as the bus service is very good but not everybody is so lucky.

Where I live a car is essential,for many people - the bus service is dire - I have a bus pass and can hardly use it.

angelab it's £10 that appears in your back account at that time of year. You could easily miss it if you don't scutenise your accounts.

Daft idea IMO.

Daphne has a car? no surprise she wants rid of the bus pass and a bit more money for self, what about the many who cannot afford a car and their bus pass enables them to travel

DaphneDill is apparently lucky enough to be able to fund her own transport - as you say, angelab, the cost of public transport in some areas is ridiculous - it would cost me £6 just to get to town and back (and it's only about 5 miles!)

If they use PC as the passport to WFA it won't cost anything extra to administer - at the moment the data base of all in receipt of state pension is used to trigger the payment of WFA - they'll just in the future have to use the data base of people in receipt of PC. It really is a non argument.

Means testing definitely costs money as they have to employ people to decide who is and isn't eligible. Then someone else to deal with the appeals.

What's this Christmas bonus?

I get my knickers in a twist over the £10 Christmas bonus which must cost a fortune to administer. Would means testing also not cost a lot for the winter allowance or whatever it is called?

One comment I heard was it would apply only to those with income in the higher tax bracket. (43k)?
Maybe wouldn't apply to the average pensioner but wouldn't be unreasonable in my opinion.

And how would you travel Daphne?

Its not clear how a "wealthy" pensioner is defined. Is it those claiming pension credit ( not exactly wealthy if you are just above that), or those on the higher tax rate? (few pensioners come into that category)

I agree daphne, the public transport in rural areas is very poor. Personally I live in an urban area, and my bus travel would cost me considerably more than a couple of pounds - a day, never mind a week/month/year! In fact a single journey is a minimum fare of £2.50

I'd rather have a couple of pounds extra on my pension, so that I could spend it as I wish.

Bus passes might be very liberating in an area where there are buses, but there are hardly any in rural areas.