http://www.merseytravel.gov.uk/tickets/ ... s/60+.aspx

At 60 and live in Merseyside, London, Scotland, NI or Wales you get free bus passes why are we discriminated against in the rest of England?

The actual cost of providing these must be small in reality and would have many benefits socially and environmentally.

Perhaps this is something the Tees Valley Combined Authority might like to consider?

Well considering the buses run regardless and you don't often see a full bus it's ridiculous. Get the old folks out of cars because they are shit drivers and get them free transport into the town centre as no one else goes there.

Yes considering there is huge spare capacity on buses after 9.30 this could easily funded at marginal cost so would be good value to users, government and the bus companies......absolute no brainer for me!

If the buses are that good, YOU use them. By the way, you'll have a long wait for a bus after 6pm. Our lovely council scrapped subsidies to Stagecoach long before other Labour councils, if indeed we have a Labour council.

Liverpool , London, Scotland .. quite left leaning those areas, whether Labour or SNP , so maybe there is your answer. After all it was a Labour government who brought them in, well a sort of Labour government.

As for buses after 6pm, councils are cash strapped due to supply of cash getting cut from the government, so everything is under threat, even previously subsidised public transport. I know its a pain in the butt at times, no more so than for me, for me, when I stay out too long on the drink down Hartlepool , either having to walk home or get a taxi, but to add some balance to the debate, when I do catch a bus before the new witching hour of 7pm, there are rarely more than 3 or 4 people on the bus. Imagine town services wouldn't be much better. Its not as though there is anywhere to go or worth going, the pubs are empty after 6pm as well. Like I say for some its a pain, having to visit sick relatives or drop or pick kids up etc, or poor young or old buggers who work out of town on unsociable shifts, that's why I suppose they keep a skeleton service running after 6pm etc, but that will go eventually I imagine. I can drive but I like public transport, but I know some people who tell me they wouldn't be seen dead travelling on a bus alongside people who sometimes smell.

This is where we are at in this country.

It,s a great way of doing a pub crawl on a day pass, me and Bluestreak are experts at it. No drink driving ( wouldn,t anyway) Pubs and shops gaining trade and buses kept on the roads, we all benifit.

Often get an Explorer day ticket . You can go as far as Carlisle , Berwick or a favourite of mine in the summer, is get the x93 I think it is, from Boro to Scarborough, that goes through Whitby. You can either have 4 or 5 hours in Scarborough or 6 or 7 in Whitby. Alnwick or Tynemouth are nice day outs as well, if you have female company or a family.

Great value for a tenner, and to think senior citizens can go for nothing, fair play to them, they deserve it.

I demand my pass NOW!!! plus 3 years cost of fares since turning 60. I refuse to get the bus to Pools until its sorted. Wouldn't anyway. Only £1.65 return from Seaton to Hartlepool on the train with the advanced years railcard And you can get a train back to Seaton at 10 o' clock at night

Don't get me started on buses and bus passes. Ones Gander is up.