SPT Travel Card changes to see fares rise next month

The SCTS facilitates more than five million journeys each year at a typical cost of £4.5 million annually to local authorities. 

But with increasing demand alongside increasing operator fares, SPT worried that without change the scheme could be lost entirely.

Chairman of the SCTS Joint Committee, Glasgow Councillor Stephen Dornan, said:  “While we appreciate and fully support the popularity of the concessionary travel scheme, the basic fare structure it was operating under was putting the scheme at risk.

"Concessionary fares have not kept pace with wider operator fare increases so the scheme has been costing more year-on-year, and local authorities, facing decreasing budgets, simply cannot afford to contribute more to the scheme.  

“This situation has now become financially unsustainable and we faced the very real prospect of losing the scheme if we didn’t make substantial changes."

Local groups have had mixed reaction to the changes. 

Oban U3A chairperson, Penny Earle, said: "A lot of U3A members are incomers that do a lot of travelling throughout the country, not just to our groups, so to increase the price of that will be significant. 

"The U3A’s on Mull and Coll recently closed. It would have been nice if their members could come join us, but now it’s going to cost them hundreds of pounds a year more."

Ferry committees on Coll and Tiree, which already saw elderly residents pay the higher £2.90 for their ferry use, were not worried by the change.

Islanders without an SPT card on Coll and Tiree are already paying more than £22 for a return ticket, so £4 is still seen as a "reasonable discount".  

The Arran Ferry Committee agreed with this sentiment. 

A spokesperson for the Islay Community Council Ferry Committee said: "It is a relatively small part of the hit that islanders on our route are facing.

"If you also consider CalMac’s general 10 per cent fares increase from April, Argyll and Bute Council’s council tax increase, 9.9 per cent from April and Government rises in National Insurance and minimum wages with freezing of tax bands.