Children to lose out on free bus passes as council looks to cut costs

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

The spiralling costs of busing children to school has prompted a council to propose taking away free bus passes from pupils it thinks should walk.

Changes to a home to school transport policy would mean all primary pupils, aged from four to 11, who live within two miles of their nearest, or suitable, school would be expected to walk. Secondary pupils would be expected to walk up to three miles to school.

At present Monmouthshire County Council provides free bus passes to 2,828 pupils to travel to 54 different educational establishments and its likely the changes would deny 300 pupils free travel from September 2025 to save £665,000 a year from the £7.7 million school transport bill.

Primary pupils

Primary pupils currently receive free transport if they live 1.5 miles from either their catchment school, or nearest Welsh medium or faith school, and the distance for secondary school pupils is two miles. Up to 133 primary pupils could be impacted including 53 attending faith schools and 10 at Welsh medium schools and at secondary 167 pupils could lose their bus passes but none who attend faith or Welsh medium schools as they are all out of the county.

The changes would bring Monmouthshire’s policy into line with what it is required to provide by law.

If the proposed changes are agreed by the Labour-led cabinet in September the council would assume pupils could walk instead, so long as there is walking route available the council has assessed as safe.

Debra Hill-Howells, the council’s head of transport, said: “All local authorities are having to look at this due to the uplift in costs of providing home to school transport and operators’ costs of fuel, parts, vehicles and staffing costs that have all gone up.”

She said 18 of Wales’ 22 councils have adopted the statutory two mile primary school distance and 19 use the three mile limit for secondary schools.

Consultation

The council is currently consulting on the plans and within a week of it seeking opinions received 105 comments disagreeing with the new distance for primary pupils, with 86 in favour, and 113 opposed to the change for secondary pupils and 68 in support.

Ms Hill-Howells told the council’s people scrutiny committee that showed 45 per cent of respondents, at that stage, supported the change for primary pupils and 41 per cent for secondary with, she said, 185 of 191 responses from parents or guardians.

She told councillors: “That is quite a big element of responses from people accessing home to school transport who are voting in favour.”

Rogiet Labour councillor Peter Strong said many families in his ward with children attending Caldicot School would be affected and said: “If you have three children in the comp’ that’s an enormous cost suddenly placed on those people.”

He suggested the council’s consultation, which is open until August 23, should ask if residents would prefer a one per cent increase in council tax instead but Raglan Conservative, Penny Jones, said: “I don’t think council tax is the right route, there will be many other areas that are perhaps higher up the priority.”

Cabinet member for education, Martyn Groucutt, said there is already a discretionary support scheme for families struggling with transport costs.

Caldicot West End Labour member Gill Bond said she disagreed with describing the proposals as “options” as alternatives haven’t been put forward but Ms Hill-Howells said suggestions from the public are welcome.

The council has also proposed where it is unable to secure a bus operator, or if it is the best financial options, it will offer parents a personal transport budget to take their children to and from school. This proposal will apply to all, including pupils with Additional Learning Needs.

Parents or guardian will be offered 45p per mile and £10 an hour for the return journey, to be assessed by the council’s commissioning team.