Press Release
17th September 2002
All Aboard for Free Local Bus
Travel
With free local bus travel for
pensioners and disabled people just over a week away, MSP for
Greenock & Inverclyde, Duncan McNeil, is making sure everyone
in the area who qualifies is ready to take full advantage of the
scheme.
He has published a short, simple guide which sets out who is eligible to benefit and how the scheme will work in practice. Entitled "All Aboard for Free Local Bus Travel", the leaflet is available free of charge from Mr McNeil’s Greenock office.
Mr McNeil told the Telegraph:
"From Monday 30th September, everyone who holds a Strathclyde Concessionary Travel Card will be able to get on a bus after 9am on weekdays, or at any time at weekends and public holidays, and travel throughout Strathclyde for free. Holders of Disabled Concession Cards will be able to travel for free at any time.
"As the area covered by the scheme includes everywhere inside and roughly ten miles beyond the old Strathclyde Regional Council boundary, this means you will be able to go shopping in Glasgow, or visiting in West Linton, or for a good dose of sea air at Troon or Turnberry, and it won’t cost you a penny.
"If you are a pensioner, or have a disability, this free travel scheme could give you more freedom and increase your mobility. But, to take full advantage of it, you need to know what you will be entitled to. That is why I have published a straightforward, simple guide, setting out what the new scheme means in practice. Copies will be distributed throughout the community and anyone who wishes one to be posted to them directly can simply call my local office on 791 820."
On the subject of what those who feel they will qualify for the scheme should do now, Mr McNeil continued:
"If you already hold a Strathclyde Concessionary Travel Card, this will be valid for free journeys. You do not need to apply for a new travel card.
"If, however, you are a pensioner and do not have a travel card, you can apply at the Post Office, provided you bring proof of age, proof of address and one passport-type photograph.
"The procedures by which others who
qualify for the scheme can apply for a travel card, for example
those who are disabled or deaf, differ and I set these out in
more detail in the leaflet."
ENDS
Notes:
Copies of the leaflet to which Mr McNeil referred are
available from his local office (01475 791 820).
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