Leading councillors are being recommended to pass cost-cutting proposals to restrict the eligibility to home to school transport, despite parents living across North Yorkshire expressing anger about the proposals.
An officers’ report to a meeting of North Yorkshire Council’s executive on Tuesday states the authority should amend the criteria for free home to school transport to match the statutory requirement, meaning eligibility on school catchment grounds would no longer apply as part of the future travel policy.
The recommendations, which follows a petition against the changes being presented to the council, also seek to remove transport assistance to children with second addresses and for children attending designated religious character primary schools.
The meeting follows the authority issuing a 592-word press release about executive members considering the results of a public consultation over the changes on Tuesday, without making reference to any of the seven recommendations or the overall public response to the consultation.
The executive will also consider another report, regarding a notice of motion put by opposition councillors in May “to halt the cuts to free school bus services in the county and to use £6.2m of emergency central government funding for its intended purpose of supporting frontline services”.
However, documents being presented to the meeting do include numerous letters written by parents expressing anger over the changes which Richmond and Northallerton MP Rishi Sunak, Skipton and Ripon MP Julian Smith and Selby MP Keir Mather have forwarded to the council for its attention.
Parents have claimed the changes will effectively bar them from considering sending their children to the nearest school or force them to pay hundreds of pounds for the transport while others have highlighted concerns the proposals could create safety risks for children in rural and remote parts of the county.
One letter states:
“The communities living and working in the Dales already face many challenges both logistically and financially for school and work opportunities.
“Bringing in changes to transport policies like this would completely deter any young families from moving to the area, specifically Upper Swaledale, if their only school options where transport is provided is by travelling over a dangerously high route.”
The council, which is facing having to make tens of millions of pounds of savings to balance its books, has repeatedly highlighted the soaring cost of home to school transport, some £51m this year.
It has estimated the proposed policy would make an annual saving at the end of a transition period of between £770,000 to £3.8 million.
Due to the seven-year transition period, the council has underlined no-one will lose what they currently have in terms of home to school travel provision unless their personal circumstances change.
Ahead of the meeting, the council’s executive member for education, learning and skills, Councillor Annabel Wilkinson, said: “We will take on board the feedback from the consultation and we thank everyone for taking part.
“We understand the reservations around transporting children and young people to schools, and concerns about costs from parents and carers who may have children attending different schools.”
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