THERE would seem to be - judging from the various comments made by the Conservative Council Leader recently - some confusion over the introduction of charges or the ending of a free travel scheme.

First of all, there is the issue of cost and how the scheme can be funded. The council has known for a long time this issue would have to be faced and, indeed, the cuts we made last year were in part to fund ongoing expenditure we felt should not come from the council taxpayer.

The council currently has £18 million in reserves, consistently underspends its budget by £450,000 per year and last year added considerable sums to its savings.

Due to past decisions, opposed by our opponents, the council is debt free and makes substantial profits on its lendings.

The council is set to make further savings of more than £500,000 this year and more savings have been identified for post 2005/06.

Against this background, it is nonsense to pretend the council is unable to fund a free scheme.

If, however, it felt the cost has to be borne by the council taxpayer, the cost to a band D payer would be less than £10 per year, which compares to the £250 per year Councillor Smithers is imposing on the average concessionary bus user.

When people come to judge the way in which council tax is spent, I am sure this will seem to be better value than all the money Mr Smithers' Tory colleagues at County Hall have spent.

They have painted white lines everywhere, burnt them off, put up traffic lights (with hoods on them) then taken them down and generally tried to turn Redditch into the cone capital of Europe.

The last point is the current proposals will not increase the bus provision in Redditch.

Expanding Dial-a-Ride is good and was already programmed to be done before the May elections but it is not a solution to the lack of buses in certain parts of the town.

It is misleading to imply these changes mean a bright new future. They just represent a savage cut and will bring misery to many of our people who deserve better.

We will continue to fight these proposals from now until the next elections and hope that, not for the first time, Mr Smithers has a change of mind and listens to what people are saying.

David Cartwright

Leader Labour Group

Redditch Town Hall