Concessionary Fares Consultation

This year we’ve seen an unprecedented rise in the cost of living, impacting on everyone in Cornwall. The increased inflation is leading to a significant rise in the costs of providing our services. On top of that, demand for our services continues to grow due to an ageing population, the housing crisis and the cost of living crisis. This comes at a time where we are still recovering from the financial costs of supporting and protecting our residents during the Covid pandemic.

This means our income is not able to keep up with the cost of maintaining our current level of services and activities and we have to make savings to be able to balance our budget.

We are already trying to protect frontline services by making savings where possible by reducing the size of our organisation and delivering our services in different and more effective ways. But we’ll need to do more.

Currently we are delivering both services that we have a duty to provide (statutory services) and services and functions that we can choose to provide (discretionary services). We’re now considering reducing or stopping some of these discretionary services and functions.

Concessionary Travel Scheme

Cornwall Council currently offers free bus travel at all times of the day to card holders who qualify for a concessionary bus pass under the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme.

The scheme is successful, with over 115,000 cards issued to residents, 110,407 of which are issued to residents of senior age and a further 5,295 issued to residents with qualifying disabilities. This has so far resulted in over 1.3 million card holder journeys between April 2022 and September 2022.

The statutory requirement for the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme is to allow free bus travel for journeys starting between the hours of 0930 and 2300 (inclusive) on Mondays to Fridays and at any time on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays. Under its discretionary powers, the council currently also offers free bus travel to card holders at any other time.

Cornwall Council consulted on proposals to end the discretionary element of our scheme and align with the statutory requirements of the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme.

This would mean that your concessionary bus pass would no longer permit you to travel for free before 0930 on week days (Mondays to Fridays). You would have to pay a fare if you wish to use the bus before 0930. You will continue to be able to travel for free at other times, including on Bank Holidays. The earliest that these changes would take effect, should the Council decide to go ahead with this proposal, would be 1st June 2023.

This consultation closed on 23 January 2023. We received over 2,000 responses. The feedback from this consultation was reported to Cornwall Council's Cabinet in March 2023, which decided not to go ahead with this proposal.