Over the next few weeks letters will be sent to all pensioners in Hertsmere who claim bus passes.

This year Hertsmere Borough Council will send bus passes to people through the post, instead of asking pensioners to collect them at the council's offices.

The letters will explain the differences between the various bus passes available, and what sort of person each pass is designed for.

All pensioners in Hertsmere are now entitled to free half-fare passes, allowing them to make cheaper journeys in Hertfordshire and parts of north London.

Pensioners receiving benefits will be entitled to free zonal passes, which allow free travel in and around Hertsmere.

But Hertsmere's most popular bus pass, the zonal pass for pensioners not receiving benefits, will still cost £36.

At a meeting of the council's ruling executive committee last week, councillors heard that since they had doubled the cost of non-benefit bus passes in 2000, around 600 pensioners had stopped using them.

The council officer in charge of bus passes, Martyn Neve, said he had contacted 67 people who had stopped using the passes, and found that almost two-thirds had reasons other than the cost for not renewing them.

Councillors Leon Reefe and Joe Goldberg, representing the Labour Group, said there were still too many pensioners who were deprived access to transport because of the price hike.

Since the price of the non-benefit zonal bus pass was changed, the cost of providing a concessionary fare scheme has dropped from nearly £1million per year to £759,000.

Councillor Spencer Pitfield, in charge of bus pass policies, said that at the current cost, each council tax payer in Hertsmere paid £22 per year to keep the scheme running.

"Householders pay a lot of money towards bus passes, and we have to look after all the residents in the area. I would say £22 for each household is a fair amount."

But this week 68-year-old Phyllis Boles said she thought the council should use its invested capital to subsidise free bus passes for pensioners: "We pay Council Tax and we don't get anything for it."