School children should receive free bus travel before pensioners?

[Itchthescratch]

My child is starting a school where it will cost around £2k for bus travel. This school is local and one of the closest schools to us. The other schools close to us are much worse in terms of opportunities and academic outcomes. I can afford the bus fare easily but I worry that some poorer families will really struggle to send their children to the higher achieving school because of the cost.

I understand that there isn't an endless pot of money but surely it would make sense to give school children free travel ahead of other groups like pensioners? School children are statistically much more likely to suffer from poverty (child poverty is almost double pensioner poverty)and it seems crazy that we aren't supporting social mobility whilst we let all pensioners travel for free on buses.

“Entitled to free travel” doesn’t mean they actually use public transport. My next but one neighbour for example, pays for cabs or relies on people giving her lifts rather than use buses and tubes. And she isn’t alone. Other people I know use their own cars as they prefer the convenience and independence it gives, or because they like my neighbour are anxious ( unnecessarily imo) about the safety of public transport.

I do use public transport, and am happy to do so, and grateful too. I am lucky enough to live in London where the freedom pass is a real benefit. Without it my ability to get out and about would be severely curtailed. I would probably end up lonely, depressed and isolated which would be bad for my mental and physical health meaning I would be more of a burden on the NHS. I would also not be spending a decent proportion of my pension directly supporting London’s and the country’s economies. Cafes, restaurants, galleries, museums, theatres, cinemas,courses, pubs and shops would miss out on my contribution to the grey pound. I would far rather be out spending my money and helping to keep people in jobs, and services alive, than sitting at home.

I feel very sorry for people living in areas where public transport is really poor, I think the emphasis should be on making good transport services available to everyone, wherever they live, rather than squabbling over who gets the free pass.

I love my free Oyster Pass, used it to travel home from work today. You can praise it out of my cold dead hands, Op.

People don’t actually understand what ageism is

Over 2 hours if my child walked to school 🤣🤣 biking is apparently 40 minutes.

I have just driven my autistic son to secondary school for 5 years. His nearest school was 11 miles away but it wasn't great so we chose a school 14 miles away. Even though he has an EHCP he wasnt given any free travel, we could either pay for the school bus or drive. I drove as he was too anxious to get the school bus. I have driven 56 miles a day for 5 years at my own cost! As a consequence we are considerable worse off, especially as petrol prices have increased rapidly. I suppose people will say you should have chosen the nearest school but they couldn't offer the right kind of support for my son. A family worse off than us would just had to have taken the nearest school no matter the suitability, to the detriment of their child.

I suspect most affluent pensioners don't use the free bus pass they're given.

The bus pass allows pensioners who use it to give them autonomy, stay connected and active and that tends benefit their mental and physical health and decrease their need for the NHS. Does that negate the cost of the bus pass? I don't know 🤷‍♀️

My mother is late 80s and uses hers to access her Pilates class, the bank in town (there's no branches in her village now), often she walks to her local shops but gets the bus back a couple of stops with her shopping. I doubt she would do any of this without the free pass.

Bus and tram with a Zip card - not tubes or trains.

Where I am you get free transport if the closest school with places is beyond a certain distance.It doesn't happen often as most children go to their local school and they are generally within walking distance.

If you choose to send your child to a school further away then I don't see why anyone else should have to pay for it.

Basically questioning anything that involves an older person is ageism on here.

I think I do, thanks. It's treating people worse than others, including making sweeping and inaccurate generalisations about them, purely because of their age. It can be older people disparaging younger people or the other way around. Maybe it's because I'm getting older myself but I see it more and more often on Mumsnet.

Well as an adult you could choose to drive if you wanted. Children are paying to get on the bus so thier money is just as good as yours. My dd gets the bus to school it's 5 miles away so couldn't walk. The bus company did do a school bus but stopped it as it wasn't 'financially viable'. Parents would much prefer thier kids to be on private buses and not mix with joe public and all the weirdos that get on the bus but unfortunately there isn't the option.

I'm a pensioner and I've never bothered to claim my free bus pass and neither have any of my friends. I think most people prefer to use their own transport if they are in a position to do that, so I imagine that the pensioners who do claim free bus travel are those that are poorer and I think it would be terribly unfair to make them pay for the transport they need. However, I do agree that children, who need to travel everyday, shouldn't have to pay to get to school.

Anyone on a low income should receive help, including me, a pensioner on £1200 a month.

I wasn't fit to drive. I was having minor surgery on my hand and would have had to drive one-handed.

School buses are really expensive - and as Kent schools are selective it can be a long distance to the allocated school. Here are the costs:

Why should pensioners not get them, we paid into the system for years

They haven’t though which is the issue

“

Free pensioner travel in the UK costs taxpayers approximately £1.3 billion to £1.5 billion annually, split across national schemes and additional regional programs”

Not insignificant

This is one of the things a national id card would have done, connected all government databases so you can make an accurate decision on such things with most or all data availible. To me there are loads of benefits, such a pity it's stalled again.

Agreed. I use my free train travel very regularly to get into Central London. It helps to make what I'm doing there affordable. Which is a lot of the point. Along with making it easier for older people to remain active.

I do think that kids have got far too used to being ferried everywhere. A 2-3 mile walk or bike ride to school was not considered unusual 30 years ago. And with so many more children doing it, it was a lot safer.

Is there nothing parents feel thst they are actually responsible for providing for their kids? Complaints that they need to feed them, cloth them, pay for their transport to the out of catchment school they chose - the list just goes on...

But a lot more cars on the road now…

My concern would be that it would be an added reason for older people to continue driving when they are no longer fit for it. I know some people are fine to drive at a great age but my dad, for example, was increasingly dangerous as he progressed through his 70s (fortunately he did give up in his late 70s).

That's definitely not the case with my friends in London. We celebrated getting free travel and use it a lot.

@oviraptor21 how have you come to the conclusion dc are too used to being ferried around? What is that actually based on?

Well as an adult you could choose to drive if you wanted.

Not everyone can choose to drive. It's expensive to have lessons and to run a car. Then there are the many people who can't drive for medical reasons.

I don't drive. I live in London where it's perfectly possible to manage without a car and indeed preferable for environmental reasons. It's also very much for the best that other road users and pedestrians don't have to contend with me as a driver as I would have been a liability, based on how I got on when I had lessons!