SUCCESS AT LAST! -IT'S OFFICIAL

1.14.12pm GMT Tue 2nd Mar 2010

This morning a Parliamentary Committee finally agreed to pay Chesterfield Borough Council the £1.84 million shortfall on the Government's Concessionary Bus Fares scheme for 2010-2011.

Paul Holmes, MP for Chesterfield, said "This is the successful conclusion of our two year long campaign to stop the Government bankrupting Chesterfield. Over the last two years two separate Government Ministers have told me, point blank, that they had not made a mistake. They claimed, despite all the evidence that over 30 Councils, which like Chesterfield had been under funded by over £1 million per year, had been given all the money they needed to pay the bills for the Government's Concessionary Bus Fares Scheme. Chesterfield was the worst hit Council in the country having to divert 11% of its annual budget to make up for the Government's mistake. Suddenly, last autumn, a new Minister told me that I had been correct all along and that the Government had indeed got it wrong.

"CBC will now get the extra £1.84 million needed to pay for the Government's scheme for 1st April 2010 - March 2011. This is NOT extra money for the Council to spend. But it does mean that CBC will not, this year, have to rob yet another 11% of it's annual budget to pay the bills for the Government's scheme.

"Over the last two years, 2008-2010, CBC has had to divert a massive £3.4 million from its budget in order to cover the Government's failure to fund the Bus Fares scheme properly. That money had to be taken from Council reserves, from budget cuts and from 35 job losses. I will continue to fight alongside CBC to get that money back. The Government now accept that they got their figures wrong and so they should pay back the huge sum they owe from the last two years.

"It is not right that Chesterfield Council Tax Payers should have been robbed of £3.4 Million by Government incompetence. The National Concessionary Bus Fares scheme is a good one that has enriched the lives of many pensioners. But it should have been paid for by the Government and not by robbing Chesterfield."