The recently announced increase in the cost of a Young Person’s Travel Card, which allows school children to travel on buses, has been widely reported. Writing for Kent Online, Paul Francis covered opinion from the Conservative County Councillor responsible for the increase, as well as a comment from myself. I’m glad I got a reasonable quote in Paul’s piece, it’s important to have a Labour voice in the media, but my unreported comments took the subject beyond the £10 extra that parents have to find for each child:
“As a County Councillor who regularly supports school appeals, I have first hand knowledge of how many parents, carers and pupils fail to get their first choice of school, resulting in children have no option other than to travel to school by bus, paid for by their parents.
The fact that our County Council subsidises the fares to the extent is does is very welcome, but it underlines the need for all transport to be delivered for the benefit of the travelling public. It is a clear demonstration of how we would all potentially benefit if the profit motive was removed and bus travel, along with rail travel was in the public domain.
I would prefer to implement our Labour policy of free transport for the under 25s.“
I can’t understand why they didn’t use it all 😉