Holders of concessionary travel passes issued by Nottinghamshire County Council will still be able to enjoy free travel on Nottingham Express Transit after the Council decided against planned changes. They ran a consultation last year to gather the opinions of residents in the area and this came out overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the scheme as is.
The original proposal to potentially remove the concessionary scheme came as the Council sought to save costs during the current financial climate but they have now agreed to make changes – at least for 2024/25. After this responsibility for concessionary travel passes over to a new Metro Mayor for the East Midlands, so far all expected candidates for this have previously said they would continue funding which probably left the Council with little room for maneouvre.
The consultation received 3,872 responses and 92% of these said that no changes should made to the scheme.
Whilst the County Council has a legal duty to provide free travel on local bus services for holders of the English National Concessionary Travel Pass (with funding coming from the government), this does not extend to trams. It is estimated to cost £900,000 per annum to fund the use of the passes on trams with an estimated 1.14 million journeys made by 154,000 passholders.
Cllr Neil Clarke MBE, Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment at the County Council, said: “Our consultation on whether any changes should be made to the tram concessionary scheme ran from November 2023 to early January 2024.
“Access to transport is just one of the ways we hope to achieve a healthy, prosperous and greener future for Nottinghamshire residents, and so alongside our statutory duty, we also currently support passholders by offering extra entitlements such as free tram travel for concessionary passholders.
“It is great that so many people, including 2,479 passholders, had their say as part of the consultation and we have listened to the overwhelming view that has come out of the consultation that no changes should be made to the scheme.
“I am pleased to confirm that no changes will be made to the scheme for 2024/25 and after this point on 31 March 2025 it’s intended that concessionary powers as the Travel Concession Authority will be transferred to the East Midlands Combined Authority.”
The last time I visited the Nottingham tramway I purchased a Plusbus ticket with my train ticket and was able to use it on the day of arrival all day on the trams.
Note that PlusBus (sic) only covers as far north as Moor Bridge (inclusive) towards Hucknall – so not the last two stops. All the rest of the system is included and railcard holders, of course, get 34% discount on PlusBus. Non-Nottingham area Concessionary Pass holder can have a discounted day ticket (from machines only) for the whole system for £3.70 (the normal Adult fare is now £5.30).