11:32am Friday 3rd April 2009
Young people in Darlington have been given the opportunity to get a teen Card for just £1 instead of the usual £5 with the help of the DOSH Board. Staff from Arriva, Local Motion and Darlington Youth Service have been going into schools and colleges around the town promoting this offer.
The card, which can be used after 6pm Monday-Friday, all day Saturday and Sunday, Bank Holiday’s and most school holidays, will mean that young people will only have to pay 50p on a journey starting and/or finishing in County Durham and Darlington. This means that they could go to Durham for the day, it would cost you only £1 to get there and back, and Newcastle for around £4.
After many campaign groups arguing for the reduction in price for young people, it’s finally at a price affordable for young people.
Should young people get concessionary fares or not?
They have argued that as students, they don’t have as much money as most adults, so spending most of their money on bus trips to places means that they don’t have a lot of money left over for them to spend on themselves.
A 2007 briefing by the National Youth Agency revealed that nearly half of 16-18 year olds find transport costs hard to meet. 6% of 16-24 year olds have had to turn down training or further education over the previous 12 months because of transport problems. And a drop in the amount of young people holding a driving license has decreased, therefore more will be using public transport. Consultation with young people has shown repeatedly that young people are asking for affordable transport to enable them to access youth facilities, leisure facilities and support services which they cannot access when prices are so high.
Research in 2003/4 showed that 30% of young people travel by bus to get around, with the number increasing since then.
The majority of the time, when young people are consulted about what issues are affecting the, transport has always been near the top of the list. But councils seem to be reluctant to put any money into this because it could be used better elsewhere. If transport has always been an issue, then it would seem an obvious decision to do something about it. Young people shouldn’t have to turn down opportunities for them to access school, higher education. I think councils should be doing their best to give young people today a good chance to succeed.
So is it better late than never? What do you think about it?
Matt
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