NO prizes for guessing where we find ourselves standing in the latest clash over bus fares affecting passengers in Worcestershire.

The latest rise in fares is the third in 12 months, and it's well above the inflation rate. It means that, once again, the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening.

So it comes as no surprise that Councillor Tom Wells has picked up the cause, or that he emerged from a meeting with County Hall transport officers as appalled as he went in.

He can't understand how - when subsidies are rising and fuel duty's been frozen - the rises can be justified. Neither can we.

It seems that First Midland Red's hope is that passengers will accept the fare increases and keep using services, funding company pay awards, fuel price rises and insurance premiums as they go.

We don't see that happening. We're certainly dubious that such a strategy will bring First Midland to the point where passenger numbers increase and allow the company to "develop bus fare initiatives".

Tom Wells' view is that the company's short-term objective for higher profits and larger dividends "is at the expense of the poor, elderly and disabled who rely upon public transport". It's hard to disagree.

Likewise, he's also right to say that what's happened isn't within the spirit of the current national public transport agenda.

As we've been moved to say on a couple of occasions recently - the last time on Tuesday, after city councillors agreed to rethink bus fare rises affecting pensioners in Worcester - it's as if the people making these policy decisions want to force travellers away from the buses and straight back into cars.

If Worcester isn't going to continue gagging on fumes, if society is going to improve its mobility across the county, none of us can afford for that to happen.