Anger grows after meeting with 'Bus Minister'

Chesterfield MP Paul Holmes met this morning with the 'Bus Minister' Paul Clark.

Paul said "This was the 'urgent' meeting I first requested on 15th December. Two and a half months later the Government still shows no sense of urgency."

"On Monday night (2nd March) Chesterfield Borough Council set its budget for 2009-2010. In total over the 2 years from April 2008 to April 2010 CBC will have spent all its cash reserves, cut Council services and lost at least 40 jobs -all in order to pay for the Government's massive under funding of a Government imposed scheme."

"Despite this, all the Minister could offer was that he was sure the Government had provided enough money and had carefully calculated the costs that towns like Chesterfield would have to pay. He said his officials would continue to look at the figures but offered little prospect of anything changing before 2010 -if then."

Paul Holmes said "These must be the same careful calculations that gave the Isles of Scilly £51,000 to pay for Concessionary bus fares, when there are NO buses on the island, hardly a resounding vote of confidence in the way the Government introduced the scheme!"

"The Minister noted that [Labour run] Derbyshire County Council had withdrawn £1.8million it used to spend on its more generous Gold Card scheme before the Government introduced its national scheme in April 2008. That's true enough but of no use to taxpayers in Chesterfield.

"The Minister also suggested that Derbyshire Councils (such as Bolsover and NE Derbyshire), who the Government had given hundreds of thousands of pounds TOO MUCH to, might voluntarily give the money to those like Chesterfield and Derby who the Government had given too little to. That's not very likely as they have already spent it -in any case if the Government admit they allocated the money wrongly they should do something about it not indulge in wishful thinking."

"There was little or no comfort in this meeting for those who are now losing their jobs in order to pay for the Government's mistakes."