Orkney MSP, Liam McArthur, has written to Stewart Stevenson, the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure & Climate Change, urging him to extend the scheme which provides free bus travel for disabled and elderly people to cover community transport schemes and local ferry services, such as those within Orkney.

He was responding to the failure of a recently published report, “Review of the Scotland Wide Free Bus Travel Scheme for Older and Disabled People”, which omitted from its recommendations any proposal for such extensions.

Backing the case for community transport schemes to be included, Liam McArthur reminded the Minister that the report made the case for such an extension. He noted that it recorded that “Good and reliable accessible transport, such as Community Transport, enables people to live independently for longer, thus reducing the burden on care in the community and residential care budgets.” and that it also stated that “In rural areas, especially where there are few alternative public transport buses, Community Transport services are mainly used by elderly and disabled people who do not have access to private transport.”

Liam McArthur noted, “These strong points support the case for the extension of the scheme to cover community transport, so it is very disappointing that they do not result in a clear recommendation for such an extension.”

Turning to the case for the inclusion of local ferry services, Liam McArthur told the Minister that the ferries “take the role in the islands of buses in other areas. Just as residents of, for example, Bathgate will hop onto a bus to go shopping in Edinburgh, residents of Sanday, or of any of the other outer islands of Orkney, need to catch a ferry if they are to head for the shops in Kirkwall. Yet the elderly Bathgate residents get free transport to the shops while the Sanday ones currently don’t.”

He therefore urged the Minister to “give further consideration to the extension of the scheme to cover community transport services and local ferry fares and to recognise the strong case for their inclusion in the scheme.”

Commenting, Liam McArthur said;

“This vital free transport scheme has been a great boon to many people. It provides free travel on scheduled bus services and, in the case of islanders, two free trips to the Scottish Mainland on the Pentland Firth and Aberdeen ferry services. But many do not get the full benefit because of the limited scheduled bus services in their area. They would be helped if Community transport schemes were included. In addition, internal ferries are genuinely equivalent to local bus services in the south and so should also be covered. That is why I have asked the Minister to look at this again.”