Richmond Council have criticised the government's plans to axe free travel for children.

Children are currently entitled to Oyster cards which give them free travel on bus services in the borough.

As a condition to the £1.6 billion bailout of Transport for London, the Government will suspend free travel for under-18s.

The suspension is described as temporary, but no timescales have been announced.

Leader of the Council, Gareth Roberts said:

"The issue about axing free travel is that it is effectively the Government trying to force TFL to balance its books by withdrawing opportunities for young people.

"Children and young people under 18 use their free travel for all sorts of reasons such as travelling to sporting events, cultural events, seeing friends and some will use it to go to work.

"The young people of this borough don't have a voice in this, they rely on the adults in the room to do the adult thing, and the adult thing to do is to protect the services on which they rely."

advertisement

The suspension of free travel is scheduled to come into force in September 2020.

Another condition means that over-60s are no longer to use their Freedom Passes to get free travel on TFL services before 0900hrs but the Disabled Freedom Pass is unaffected.