Cllr Edward Giles, IW Council cabinet member for environment and transport, has revealed that the current shortfall in the scheme that sees any pensioner in the UK travel free on Island buses is expected to cost the Island £3 million this year.
The scheme was brought in by the Government and applies across the whole of the UK was discussed by the IW Council and introduced two years ago, in November 2009.
The heart of the legislation was a clause that the scheme should neither financially benefit or disadvantage the two main parties involved – the bus company and the local authority. Clearly from these figure this isn’t the case.
The Island is particular affected by the scheme as it’s such a popular holiday destination.
Trying to sort it out
To try and address this Andrew Turner, Cllr Tim Hunter- Henderson and Stuart Love Director of Environments and Neighbourhoods met with the then-Transport Minister, Paul Clark MP, in January and outlined the difficulties the Island faced because the funding formula does not properly recognise the additional journeys we are obliged to provide for tourists and holidaymakers.
In a letter to the Island’s MP, dated 4th November, the Transport Minister, Sadiq Khan MP said that they would revise the grant formula to lead to increases in payments to around 30 local authorities including an additional £890,000 to the Island for the financial year 2010/11. It would be paid for by reducing the grant to London and 63 other authorities.
“Too little – far too late”
Andrew Turner has labelled this as “too little – far too late,” explaining “Although I am glad there is some movement from the Government on this issue, it implicitly recognises that the existing funding formula is unfair. If the formula for funding the national scheme is unfair now – it has been unfair since its inception in 2008, yet there is no suggestion of any sort of compensation for those authorities, including the Isle of Wight, which lost out in previous years.”
Cllr Edward Giles, IW Council cabinet member for environment and transport, also commented on it, “While we welcome the apparent acknowledgement that the scheme is inadequately funded, we regret this response still leaves IW Council tax payers significantly out of pocket.
“Not only does this announcement fail to account for the historic nature of the flawed funding mechanism since the concessionary fares scheme was introduced in 2006, the figure in question does not even come close to meeting the current shortfall in the scheme which is expected to be around £3 million this year. This is money that, had the scheme been properly funded, could have been spent on other areas of importance to Island residents.”
image: Banalities under CC BY-SA 2.0
