11:35am Friday 26th September 2008
By Duncan Eaton
WITH her blind mum stood beside her she made a passionate plea to save Eastleigh’s free travel tokens.
It came during a public meeting where protesters vowed to step up their “save our tokens” battle.
Maria Hutchings led her 73- year-old mum Victoria Payne to the front of the meeting where she explained how vital the tokens were.
She said: “ My mother is registered blind. She epitomises the very reason why we have to do all we can for the senior citizens in this borough.
“My mother cannot just get on a bus and go shopping and do all the things we take for granted.”
Mrs Hutchings warned that the council’s decision to axe the free tokens would make many other disabled pensioners who were unable to use public transport prisoners in their own homes.
Council chiefs say the travel tokens have been overtaken by the introduction of the national bus pass for over-60s which came into force in April.
Although the scheme has come to the end of the road, the council says that those who still have travel tokens can use them. The tokens can be used for taxis, buses and trains.
However, a steering group has been launched to roll out the campaign, with protest petitions, across the borough.
It is planned to lobby Eastleigh councillors and challenge the decision through the disability discrimination act.
Diane Andrewes, chairman of the Eastleigh Southern Parishes Older People’s Forum, said: “Feelings are running very high over this. It does affect every older person with mobility problems in the borough.”
She said that Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne was concerned about the issue and was sounding out views by visiting disabled pensioners in the community.
One of Hamble’s oldest residents, 98-year-old Kitty Somersgill also made a passionate plea to save the tokens.
Rounding on Eastleigh Council, she said: “They are not thinking of the people who are disabled and who cannot help themselves.
“We did our job during the war.
We helped this country to stay as it is.
“We should get our tokens back.”
In an earlier statement Eastleigh Cabinet member for Transport Councillor David Airey said the increasing popularity of the national bus pass had led to a big decline in the number of applications for travel tokens.
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