Council defends controversial cuts to school transport across rural North Yorkshire

A CONTROVERSIAL decision to cut around £4m of school transport services has been defended by North Yorkshire Council.

The council’s home to school transport policy changed earlier this year and will provide travel to only the nearest school for most of the region’s 10,000 pupils who are eligible for paid transport.

Parents particularly living in rural areas of the Yorkshire Dales have argued that this could mean children being forced to travel on unsuitable roads in bad weather, rather than on A roads to school in Richmond.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Some £250,000 a day – £51m annually – is spent by the authority on providing school transport for 10,000 children, its third highest spend after adult social care and waste management.

Parents have petitioned against the transport cutsParents have petitioned against the transport cuts
Parents have petitioned against the transport cuts

The bill has more than doubled since 2018, with rising fuel costs being partially blamed, and North Yorkshire has one of the highest spends on school transport of any council area in the country.

While the transport policy is set to have a “soft launch” over the next few years to ensure pupils don’t have to move schools, angry families this week handed a petition to councillors signed by over 3,000 people demanding a reversal.

They have been supported by Tom Gordon, the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But council leaders have insisted that the policy is compliant with Department for Education statutory requirements and that the proposed cuts bring North Yorkshire in line with other authorities.

Not taking cuts could have had a “crippling effect on the other services it must deliver by law,” a council spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that parents still have a choice of where to send their children to school – but that they should now take into account transport costs if their top choice is not the nearest school.

Director of children and young people’s services Stuart Carlton said: “We have a budget gap of £48m per annum, and we have to as a council make a decision looking at all budgets as to what’s statutory and what’s discretionary.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Do we make savings in adult care, or care to children? Do we do less street repairs and potholes? No one wants to make these cuts. I don’t know a single one of our politicians who wants to make these sort of cuts but we have to have a financially sustainable authority.

“This is not an area that we’re reducing below what other authorities are doing. It brings us into line with what others are doing.”

Asked whether there were concerns about the safety of travel on rural roads, the council’s assistant director for inclusion, Amanda Newbold, said: “There’s very few reasons when transport providers have not been able to deliver.

“They were on days when schools were closed because of the weather. What we have not seen are examples of children not being able to get to school because of contractors.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Earlier this week, Tom Gordon said: “We know that it’s going to have a massive impact on childhood education and chances.

“We’ve had parents say they are going to have drop down hours at work or pay extortionate private bus company fees.”

Comment Guidelines

National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.

News you can trust since 1754
Follow us
©National World Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.Cookie SettingsTerms and ConditionsPrivacy notice