A TEAM of councillors have set out to make school transport services 'fairer' and reduce the carbon footprint as parents call current scheme "ridiculous".

Oxfordshire County Council’s People Overview & Scrutiny Committee decided to form a sub-group to focus on equality to look at how home-to-school transport is delivered for children in Oxfordshire.

The county council must provide free transport for under-8s travelling more than two miles or children aged eight and older travelling more than three miles to their nearest school, or through routes that are not deemed to be safe or suitable.

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This is delivered through a free bus pass, or using taxis and mileage allowances.

Low-income families can get help to access schools other than their nearest, while there is further provision for children with disabilities or special needs.

The council spends more than £23 million per year on transport for nearly 10,000 pupils overall.

The committee heard from two residents who do not go to their closest school.

Standlake resident Debbie List said that despite paying for her first child’s travel to his chosen secondary school, Bartholomew School, her second child was told he would not be able to access transport.

A temporary bus service plugged the gap for a term and the family is currently reliant on a volunteer-run transport service.

She says it “seems ridiculous” that her children have no right to transport to a secondary school that is part of the same academy structure their primary, irrespective of whether they pay for it, because an alternative is “370 metres closer”.

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Grandparent John Christie then spoke about 219 residents of Middle Barton signing a petition to get the village’s children access to transport to Chipping Norton School.

He said it was “harsh and unreasonable” that the village’s “long established” link to the school could be severed for some families due to Heyford Park School, which he says does not have an adequate number of places to cater for Middle Barton, being deemed nearer.

Kevin Gordon, Oxfordshire’s director of children’s services, said the complaints 'absolutely exemplified the issues we have' in meeting expectations across 'a big rural county', acknowledging that 'resource implications' made policies 'quite tight and deliberately so'.

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Councillor Dan Levy said: “It is not equitable for people in a single village to have the rich kids going to the catchment school when they can pay for transport while the kids from poor families go to the nearest school because they can get free transport.

“If we are trying to reduce costs and the carbon impact then having multiple buses going to various places from a single site does not strike me as being a particularly sensible outcome.

“There must be something we can do in those areas, I would hope.”

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