FREE bus travel for 16–18-year-olds in Dorset is unlikely to happen – because of the costs.

Portfolio holder Cllr Jon Andrews says Dorset Council has looked at the idea but it works out at more than £11.5million a year, which he says the authority cannot afford.

The idea has been floated both nationally and locally to help young people get to school or college, but also to widen their social lives.

Lyme Regis and Charmouth councillor Belinda Bawden had told council colleagues that many families simply cannot afford the cost of bus travel for their youngsters if they want to travel to college, in the west of the county often involving long journeys.

The lack of funding for public transport in the Dorset Council area has been the subject of many comments as the authority consults on its next public transport plan, co-produced with neighbouring Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.

Time after time Dorset councillors have pointed to the disparity of Government funding for public transport in the BCP area, compared to rural Dorset – with a round of funding last year seeing the eastern half of Dorset getting more than £9million to improve bus services and Dorset getting nothing.

Weymouth councillor David Northam said: "DBCP got millions… Are we getting a fair share of the funding? "

He also told the meeting he would support a 'transport hub' at the existing Weymouth Park and Ride where people parked their cars making their onward journey into the town centre on electic buses or even electric bikes or scooters, which could be hired.

Cllr Ray Bryan told the meeting that while the BCP area had mainly new, up to date buses, rural Dorset often had old, polluting, buses at the end of their working life and infrequent services.

North Dorset councillor Sherry Jesperson said that while the BCP area and market towns in Dorset spoke about improving bus services, there were large areas of the rural county which were disadvantaged by having no service at all.

"There are whole swathes of rural Dorset with no bus services… we need to grasp the nettle and introduce services… at the moment we just spend money where we get the most bang for our buck, which I understand, but that just continues to disadvantage areas which have nothing at all, or next to nothing at all. If we are going to build houses across parts of rural Dorset, which we are, we will need rural transport," she told a committee looking at the transport plan.

Charminster councillor David Taylor warned that a lack of investment in public transport would create problems in the future: "The over 60s will be rapidly rising to over 40per cent of the population, many will not be able to drive over the age of 70," he said.

The meeting was also told of thousands of households, even in relatively affluent areas across the county, had no access to a car.

The meeting was also heard that two thirds of Dorset journeys were less than 5 miles and yet people were reluctant to walk or cycle instead because of safety concerns, or because no suitable bus route existed.

Cllr Roland Tarr, who represents villages south of the Ridgeway, said the point was illustrated by the fact that when he came to the area, in 1974, almost every child in Dorchester schools walked or cycled.

"Now we have queues of parents clogging up the roads at school time," he said.

Cllr Tarr also called for more support for rural cycle routes which he said would help village pubs and shops survive, many now only opening between Wednesday and Sunday only.

The public consultation on the transport plan continues until October 13th and is separate from the Local Plan review, which according to Cllr Jesperson was a mistake made by the council to have both ongoing at the same time, because most people were focusing on the larger Local Plan review.