There appears to be some misunderstanding about council payments to bus companies for the concessionary fare (Argus letters, April 17).

They are not subsidies for the bus companies but reimbursement for the cost of transporting the many people who use the concessionary fare scheme in the city.

By law the bus company cannot be any better off from receiving the payment than had the system not been in operation. In some parts of the country, bus services are being lost because the levels of reimbursement are not enough to cover costs.

However, while the bus companies cannot profit from this, it actually helps provide the city with a better bus service which we would not otherwise have. Without it we would have less frequent services and worse congestion as more people would be in cars.

In the same edition Katy Rice asks why parking cannot be free and easy like where her mum comes from.

Apart from the fact she is in a very different situation, you can never provide enough car parking to satisfy demand in larger towns and cities.

The roads would not cope and very quickly the place would be brought to a standstill, crippling the local economy.

Equally, while people always moan about parking, very little thought is given to the wider impacts of subsidising car use.

One of those is that it undermines public transport and ultimately leads to services being cut.

That might not be a problem for people who can drive or who can afford a car but around the country there are many stories of people feeling completely abandoned as they have lost their local bus services.

These are not just stories of inconvenience, but often of real hardship.

If we are to avoid creating a society that turns its back on people, then we need a much more inclusive approach to moving people around and which promotes options other than the car.

Chris Todd
Brighton and Hove Friends of the Earth
Hollingdean Terrace, Brighton