Hundreds of children to lose free home to school transport

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

A decision that will deny some 300 children free home to school transport has been confirmed by a senior councillor.

Pupils were previously entitled to a free bus pass if they lived 1.5 miles or more from their nearest primary school and two miles or more for those attending secondary school.

But after Monmouthshire County Council’s cabinet agreed to up that to two miles and three miles, in line with the Welsh Government’s statutory distances, opposition councillors demanded a rethink.

Flawed

Conservative members claimed the decision was flawed as a consultation was held during July and August, mostly during the long school summer holidays, and used the council’s call in process so the decision taken by the cabinet earlier in September was put before a cross party scrutiny committee.

When that committee met last week it said the decision should go back before the Labour-led cabinet for it to once again consider the issue.

It met on Wednesday, September 25 and the councillor responsible for education, Martyn Groucutt, defended the consultation and said the scrutiny committee hadn’t commented on any other aspects of the original decision.

Cllr Groucutt, who joined the meeting by a video link from a funeral he was attending in Cirencester, said: “It’s difficult to come to any conclusion other than this year’s consultation was very effective.”

He said the consultation had started in July, while schools were still open, the council had contacted every family using school transport to inform them of the changes, 12 articles had appeared in local newspapers and the council made 16 posts on its social media accounts that had nearly 60,000 views.

As a result, said Cllr Groucutt, the council received nearly 100 more responses than it had to its budget survey earlier this year and it ran for the same length of time as last year’s consultation on home to school transport.

Reassurance

Conservative opposition leader Cllr Richard John asked what “reassurance” could be given to parents whose children “will have to walk unsafe routes to school”.

Cllr Groucutt said no children would have to walk “unsafe” routes and all are assessed by the council’s road safety officers: “If any walking route is considered unsafe there is no suggestion transport is withdrawn.”

When Cllr John asked if the cabinet member would consider a pavement alongside a 60 mile per hour road “safe” Cllr Groucutt replied: “I don’t consider any road, a recommendation is made to me. If a road safety officer tells me it is safe, or dangerous, I take his word for it.”

The cabinet also agreed it would consider points made by the scrutiny committee for future council consultations.