Sir – As a Woodstock town councillor with responsibilities as the local parish transport representative, I took particular interest in a rather depressing discussion on the BBC TV South part of the Politics programme on Sunday, January 24, because the aspects relating to Oxfordshire concerned the threat of losing local bus services and the role of concessionary passes.

It prompted me to write to David Cameron as my constituency MP to tell him that before the last General Election I had suggested to councillor Ian Hudspeth that a perfectly acceptable way of raising money to protect local bus services would be to ask all pensioners to pay a nominal charge of £1 per bus journey.

That would be affordable for everyone and would raise a significant sum nationally while being easy to administer. Ian Hudspeth said in response that David Cameron, as Prime Minister, was committed to the principle of free bus passes for pensioners, so nothing happened. However, in the desperate circumstances we now face, I have put it to Mr Cameron that we need to consider such an idea urgently to protect at least some of our loss-making bus services.

At the time of writing I await his reply.

Brian Yoxall
Woodstock