Extending a scheme for free bus travel for overs-60s and the disabled to cover the entire country is causing a further ‘headache’ to an authority already struggling to implement existing free passes.
Chancellor ~Gordon Brown~ announced last week that, from April 2008, pensioners and the disabled would be given free, national, off-peak bus passes, allowing them to cross local authority borders.
The cost was estimated at £250M, and the chancellor promised to consult on how this was to be implemented. But a spokesman for Nexus said it faced a ‘financial crisis’ over the next two years, due to a £5.4M funding gap for the original, local scheme.
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