PENSIONERS and disabled people will soon have to pay for a ticket to ride on a Park & Ride bus into York.

City of York Council is removing Park & Ride journeys from the statutory concessionary travel scheme from July 1.

Concessionary passholders boarding such buses at any Park & Ride site, who until now have been able to travel free after 9am, will have to pay a fare of 50p.

The fare will apply after 9am on Mondays to Fridays and at any time on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays.

But it will not be payable when boarding such buses at any other stops on the way into the city centre, or when boarding buses in the city centre to go back to the Park & Ride sites.

Coun Dave Merrett, the council’s new Labour executive member for city strategy, said the decision to introduce a charge – which is in line with revised Government guidance and helps meet the operational costs of running the service – had been taken by the former Liberal Democrat administration earlier this year.

However, the Labour administration had no plans to reverse the decision, which would raise £250,000 in revenue for the council.

Linda Tester, of the representative organisation Older Citizens Advocacy York, said she was “disappointed” by the decision to introduce the charge.

“I am quite surprised they have made this decision,” she said. “If it stops some elderly people coming into town, I would not be happy about that, because it inhibits their independence.”