Thousands of pensioners entitled to free bus travel will have their wanderlust curbed.

The Government has ruled that some companies will now be exempt from the controversial concessionary bus fares scheme.

Travel firms such as National Express and Megabus will now be allowed to opt out.

A Department for Transport spokesman said the move would close loopholes which allowed free travel on routes that were never intended to be in the scheme.

But Eastbourne MP Nigel Waterson, the shadow minister for older people, criticised the changes.

He said they made a nonsense of the scheme if some companies were allowed to pull out as they pleased.

Mr Waterson said: "It is another blow for hard-pressed pensioners who have seen their cost of living rocket and the income from their savings plummet."

Since last April pensioners and disabled people have been able to use their bus passes to travel for free on all local buses in the UK.

This has included more than 100 services run by National Express which runs coaches from Brighton, Eastbourne and Chichester to London, from Brighton to Gatwick, and from Eastbourne to Portsmouth.

The Argus exclusively revealed in January that the DfT was conducting a review after lobbying from operators.

The DfT spokesman said the review had now been concluded and had successfully found ways of "tightening up" the legislation around coaches, tour buses and park-and-ride services.

He said: "These kinds of services were never intended to be included and we have now amended that."

National Express will start charging again on April 1.

A spokeswoman for the firm said the move would simplify what had become a difficult situation.

She said: "Our services are supposed to be pre-booked so the only time people were able to use them for free was if they waited at a stop and a coach arrived which was not fully booked.

"This often provided a problem with people having to be turned away at the roadside. That was not good for the people who were waiting or for our drivers who had to turn them away."

In January statistics showed 22,500 free trips had been taken on coaches.

It had yet to be clarified whether National Express would still be able to claim the fuel subsidy it received for operating services designated as local.