Bus passes

[Ben@Forest]

Let's hope pensioners get taxed more as soon as possible...

It sounds as though I might have paid for some of your education.

Maybe but I also worked full time for 10 years before getting a degree and paying tuition fees. Much of this is not black and white but one thing is certain - Gordon Brown introduced free bus passes in 2005 just before a general election and after an unpopular war had been going for two years.

It was undeniably an election bribe, but also something that would not have happened if GB had been aware of a financial crisis just two years away. Now it's something all subsequent governments have to deal with because taking the free passes away would be seriously unpopular. Once the genie's out of the bottle...

[mercalia]

Let's hope pensioners get taxed more as soon as possible...

It sounds as though I might have paid for some of your education.

Maybe but I also worked full time for 10 years before getting a degree and paying tuition fees. Much of this is not black and white but one thing is certain - Gordon Brown introduced free bus passes in 2005 just before a general election and after an unpopular war had been going for two years.

It was undeniably an election bribe, but also something that would not have happened if GB had been aware of a financial crisis just two years away. Now it's something all subsequent governments have to deal with because taking the free passes away would be seriously unpopular. Once the genie's out of the bottle...

well no more than the buy your home subsidy which has in practical terms been a disaster for cheap social housing, and they are still doing it in spite of the financial mess we are in?

[Sweep]

Yes, the way the council house sales policy was designed was a scandal with trulynappaling consequences.

If the methodology had been applied to old folks' bus passes some lucky and some downright scheming sods would have been chucking the other poor sods off the bus and then flogging it.

[Mick F]

Got mine through the post today.
I was due mine July 6th this year and went to the local library to organise it. All went well, and the chap said it would be through in a week or two.
Today, it duly arrived.

Good eh?
No it isn't.
My name is incomplete.

I have never ever been Stephen Fairhust.
Consequently, I have emailed the issuing authority and await a reply.

I refuse to use my bus pass until it is correct.

[MikeF]

Got mine through the post today.
I was due mine July 6th this year and went to the local library to organise it. All went well, and the chap said it would be through in a week or two.
Today, it duly arrived.

Good eh?
No it isn't.
My name is incomplete.

I have never ever been Stephen Fairhust.
Consequently, I have emailed the issuing authority and await a reply.

I refuse to use my bus pass until it is correct.

You mustn't use it fraudulently.

[Mick F]

You mustn't use it fraudulently.

Heard recently ..........
Bus driver with his/her own bus pass, can put his/her pass on the unit and record his/her presence.

This then means that one more passenger is on the bus. Each recorded passenger's fare is claimed back from the local authority that issued the pass.

[Jon Lucas]

Got mine through the post today.
I was due mine July 6th this year and went to the local library to organise it. All went well, and the chap said it would be through in a week or two.
Today, it duly arrived.

Good eh?
No it isn't.
My name is incomplete.

I have never ever been Stephen Fairhust.
Consequently, I have emailed the issuing authority and await a reply.

I refuse to use my bus pass until it is correct.

They must do these things differently in Cornwall. When I got mine in Bath last year, I just had to go to the council office with evidence of age and address and they issued it on the spot within 2 minutes. Does Cornwall have any local offices or would you have had to go to Truro?

[matt2matt2002]

Up here in Scotland us oldies get a pass at 60!

I live just outside Aberdeen so am able to take a bus with my bike up to Inverness, over night in a Scottish Youth Hostel, (£14) and then cycle home the next day. 116 miles.
Heaven.
So enjoying semi retirement.
It took a year or more for me to get use to not working. Just didn't seem natural.
But now.........
No problems with that issue any more.

[Mick F]

They must do these things differently in Cornwall. When I got mine in Bath last year, I just had to go to the council office with evidence of age and address and they issued it on the spot within 2 minutes. Does Cornwall have any local offices or would you have had to go to Truro?

As far as I know, the bus passes are issued from a central point. Maybe where you got yours it was the central point.

I went to the local library and the chap did all the info on the computer, including taking my mug shot. It all went off on-line to an issuing office at Cornwall Council in Truro and came through the post.

Obviously, the name fields take your first name only, and not a middle name (no matter how you are called).

I had a devil of a job getting our health centre to use both my names, and eventually had to be hyphenated to Stephen-Michael. It was the only way two (or more) names could get into their data base.

When late father in law was in hospital very ill towards the end of his life, his name was above his bed, and the nurses kept calling him Alan. He was never known as Alan, but Roy. His name was an Alan Roy and very proud of his name and signed using both initials.

Same as me. I'm proud of my name and use it, but NEVER been known as Stephen by itself, and find it offensive that they can ignore my complete name.

[mercalia]

Londoners are lucky in that they can get the 60+ card before they are entitled to the Freedom pass and can be used in the same way as the Freedom Pass, but in London only.

[al_yrpal]

When I first got mine at 60 I think I put in my passport number and they retrieved a lot of my details AND my passport photo from the passport office. I just got my new one through the post, they issue them every three years and they are still using the same photo that I took which is in my 2008 passport. And, it still looks like me. Next time I think I will submit the avatar to the right.

Al