Tory councillors have warned free bus travel in Tamworth could trigger a council tax hike when funding is cut in two years' time.

Tamworth Borough Council announced last week that it was encouraging people to register for a concessionary bus pass to allow elderly and disabled passengers free travel on buses at off-peak times throughout England.

The scheme is due to be introduced in April. But now Tories fear a funding cut from central government in 2010 could see an increase in council tax to pay for the initiative.

Leader of Tamworth Borough Council, Jeremy Oates and the portfolio holder for Corporate Governance and Service Improvement, Robert Pritchard said in a joint statement they were: "Shocked to hear it is a matter of when, not if, funding is withdrawn for Tamworth's free bus pass scheme."

"Instead we left London hearing that funding will be taken away from the local council all together; this is a very scary prospect."

Councillor Oates added: "It is worrying that funding for the scheme is so limited. When this happened in Wales,Scarborough and other authorities costs instantly increased, this increase has not been included in the Department of Transports funding grants.

"Other costs which effect the huge implementation of the scheme is that it is not completely run by Tamworth Borough Council, this puts extra costs and risk against the council tax in years to come.

"We had a nice scheme that was affordable to the tax payer of Tamworth, now we have government changes with funding built on foundations in the sand, we simply can't take this sort of gamble with tax payer's money. Once we have some usage data I will commit to this council reviewing the scheme in November."

The councillors claim that ministers in Westminster were unclear how grants were allocated to TBC. The DFT knew extra money had been sent to Tamworth but had no idea how much money TBC received under the old scheme, they said.