LONG-serving busmen are offering to empty bins or sweep the streets to salvage their hopes of retiring at 50 with a pension.

They are calling on Hyndburn Council to redeploy them within the authority.

They claim the sale of Hyndburn Transport to Stagecoach has robbed them of the chance of an early pension payout just months before their 50th birthdays.

Bus drivers Raymond Gregory, Frank Atkinson and Stephen Barker, who have been paying into the Local Government Superannuation Scheme for more than 20 years, have been told their pensions are frozen until they are 60.

Mr Gregory, a driver for 27 years and four months away from being 50, said: "It might not be illegal but it's definitely morally wrong.

"The council should redeploy us until we are 50."

"We have given long and loyal service and they should be fair with us," he added.

Mr Atkinson, nine months away from being 50, said: "We were forced into the scheme and are now being forced out of it."

"If it had been an executive of the council they would have worked a way around it," he added. They say the offer of redeployment should be made to all staff in the LGSS, of which there are about 17, including half a dozen drivers.

Hyndburn director of financial services Dan Sherry said : "If the council redeployed them it becomes a cost of the council at a time when it is cutting back on its own employees and has to meet cash-limited budgets."

Following the buses sell-off bus employees can no longer contribute to the LGSS and their pension is frozen. They can enter the Stagecoach scheme with a clean sheet and start contributing.

Or they can transfer their local government pension into the Stagecoach pension scheme, taking with them the benefits of the service they have had in the local government scheme.

Mr Sherry said: "Stagecoach have undertaken to offer similar terms and conditions, broadly speaking as the local government scheme."

Whether that stretches to offering early retirement at 50 is a matter for Stagecoach."

Michael Chambers, managing director of Stagecoach Ribble, said pension advisers from Stagecoach would be talking through pension arrangements with staff and explaining the options available.

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