DEAR EDITOR - Councillor Bill Newnes can be forgiven for his confusion regarding the bus pass issue.

This authority had approximately 5,000 qualifying residents entitled to a "free" bus pass and a further 5,000 who, although entitled to one, prefer to opt for a free car park pass.

The policy of Bromsgrove District Council was to offer a choice and no-one was entitled to both passes.

As Cllr Newnes must realise nothing is "free" in this world. In this particular case the cost of providing 5,000 "free" bus passes was £450,000 a year - a payment that was made by the authority to the bus and coach operators in the district who participated in the scheme.

A central government diktat then decreed that all those qualifying must have a concessionary bus pass whether they wanted it or not.

Overnight, the potential number of bus passes had doubled to 10,000 with the respective annual cost increasing from the £450,000 budgeted for, to nearly £1m.

The only sensible choice available to the council was to introduce a half-fare concession in order to keep the total cost to the council taxpayer within the original budgeted figure.

It is a typical example of central Government's int-erference in matters it does not understand.

I believe there were only ten authorities in England which did not have a concessionary fare scheme of sorts.

Instead of the Government concentrating its efforts on those councils it used a 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' to the detriment of those already receiving a better service to the one the Government advocated.

Cllr Nick Psirides,

Leader,

Bromsgrove District Council