THE CHANCELLOR'S pre-budget report was excellent news for television viewers aged 75 and over.

At last they will get a free TV licence, but this welcome measure does nothing to address the absurdities of the concessionary TV licence scheme which hundreds of thousands of elderly people living in sheltered housing are supposed to enjoy.

Many are missing out on the £5 licence for purely technical reasons.

Thanks mainly to publicity in the local press, we have been able to compile a dossier of breathtaking inconsistencies in the way the scheme is implemented.

As I pointed out at the start of the campaign, only those living in schemes run by a local authority or housing association theoretically enjoy the discount.

Everyone else pays the full £101. The difference is in who manages the scheme - not who built it, or in the residential status of the people living there.

As more local authorities hand over the running of sheltered housing to outside specialists, the anomalies become even more glaring.

Worse still, the rules governing who gets a concessionary licence are so complex even the position of a footpath on the development can make a difference.

The chancellor is proud his free licence initiative will get those most in need.

We can only hope the Gavyn Davies report, to be published in January, will adopt the same spirit when looking at concessionary licences for those who have yet to reach 75.

John McCarthy, MBE

Chairman, McCarthy & Stone plc,

Bournemouth.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.