I READ with interest that Richard Lockyer speaking to Bournemouth Council complained about visitors using their bus passes (Echo March 5).

Mr Lockyer must recognise that it is a case of swings and roundabouts. Before the free bus passes, when my wife and I visited our friends in London we had to allow around £30 for bus travel. That made quite a hole in our joint £150 weekly pension.

It is also a fact that Londoners and schoolchildren have been enjoying free bus and underground travel for some years now. I have not heard any complaints from London councillors about visitors using their bus passes.

Perhaps their councillors have more compassion than their counterparts in other areas. While worrying about the perks that pensioners are getting on their meagre pension perhaps it would be right to question the up to £1,000,000 paid in allowances to councillors doing a job, which up to a few years ago was done by public spirited citizens for expenses only.

Can anybody put their hands on their heart and say that there have been any improvement in the running of our towns, since councillors have been paid? Records show that Foreign Secretary William Hague, Chancellor George Osborne, Cabinet Minister Oliver Letwin, and Chief Secretary Danny Alexander have each claimed thousands of pounds for travelling expences.

So it is about time that people stopped carping about pensioners’ travel perks.

JOHN DEWDNEY, Nelson Drive,Christchurch