YOUR edition of December 20 states that some of the fares on the park and ride service would increase by 66 per cent - mine has increased by 100 per cent.

I am an 87-year-old man living in Ruishton who does a Monday morning shift as a volunteer in the Brewhouse Theatre box office, so have to travel before 10am.

I also occasionally use the service on other days and have used a £12 ticket which covers six return journeys in a calendar month. This type of ticket has been discontinued, and since any discounted fares are now only available using an app on a smart phone, something which many elderly people, myself included, do not possess, I must now pay £4 for each journey.

But for just a little more (£4.80) I can have the convenience of parking right next to the Brewhouse, thus avoiding waiting at a windswept Gateway car park where the only protection is the frame of a bus shelter with little remaining glass, since the county council evidently can't be bothered to re-glaze it after travellers broke most of the glass when they were last there, many months ago.

READ MORE: Price hike of 66 per cent for some Taunton park-and-ride tickets

Nor, when I finish my shift, will I have to walk back to the town centre to wait for a bus which is often late, but can get straight into my car and be home in 10 minutes.

I shall take the easy option, and I suspect that many others will do the same when you can park for half a day as cheaply as using the service.

While waiting in the town centre to return to Gateway on Christmas Eve, I spoke to an elderly couple who had been shopping. They used to travel in on a shoppers' ticket costing £1.70, which covered both of them in one car. Now they have to pay £2.50 each, an increase of 294 per cent. Not surprisingly, they said it would be the last time they used the service.

I understand that it is necessary for us to pay more, but what I find objectionable is the insistence on using an app for discounted fares.

A "bundle" of five or 20 tickets with no time limit on them is offered for £3 a return journey, which I, and I expect many others, would be prepared to pay if only we could buy them from the driver.

Your article said "Use it or lose it". I fear that with the current fares and insistence on apps, we shall lose it.

Where is the joined up thinking between the Somerset and Taunton Deane councils?

We are told Taunton is now a garden town; a number of roads in the town centre will be closed to cars shortly; car parking space is being reduced - Coal Orchard is next on the list - yet we are all set to increase the number of cars wishing to park daily by several hundred if the park and ride has to close.

My understanding is that the annual subsidy was of the order of £170,000. This is not a vast sum when set against the combined expenditure of the two councils; is it not possible to find some solution where fares will be competitive for all combined with a reduced subsidy?

Taunton cannot afford to lose this service.

STUART SYMONDS
Ruishton