TEST Valley Council leader Ian Carr's comments in your recent article (We Need Free Travel, January 15) confuse two key issues: Government funding for concessionary fares and council decisions on whether to fund community transport schemes.
From April the Government is investing an extra £212m in the national concessionary fares scheme, taking our total spending in this area to around £1 billion a year. We believe that this is sufficient to cover the cost of the national scheme and provide eligible people with better access to public transport.
Councils should therefore have no need to divert funding from current community schemes to pay for national concessionary fares. They can continue to fund them at their own discretion, as they do now, from existing budgets.
ROSIE WINTERTON MP, Minister of State for Transport.
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