Gavin Williamson, MP for South Staffordshire, has won his campaign to put an end to new home to school transport proposals, which would have seen some parents pay up to £380 extra per child, per year.
Gavin recently met with the local authority to voice his concerns over the idea to make it mandatory for parents to pay a contribution towards their children’s home to school transport, if their children were not attending the nearest school within the catchment area.
He also sent a Freedom of Information request, demanding to know the cost of such a policy and contacted thousands of residents, urging them to make their voices heard in the matter during the consultation process.
After receiving a high volume of complaints over the proposal from parents and teachers, Staffordshire County Council has now decided to end the consultation with immediate effect and Ben Adams, the Cabinet Member for Learning and Skills, has recommended that it does not pursue these proposals.
On this announcement, Gavin said: “I wanted to say thank you to the many hundreds of people who have been in contact with me, supporting my campaign to see the proposed changes on home to school transport rejected. I wanted to let you know the fantastic news that the County Council has listened closely to the many concerns that have been raised by residents and myself over these proposals.
“Many people had said to me that this consultation was just paying lip service and there was no genuine effort to take on board the matters raised, but I am pleased to see that the County Council have listened and acted to remove any uncertainty for pupils and parent in announcing that these changes are not to go ahead.”
This proposal had a number residents fearing that they would have to either pay hundreds of pounds extra a year for home to school transport or would be forced to move their children to a school outside of the county.
To be eligible for free transport, a child’s school has to be further than three miles away, which is the accepted walking distance. This new policy would have applied even if the children were over three miles away from the catchment school, but there was another school outside of Staffordshire that was within walking distance or was closer than their existing school.
This would have meant that many families, who had previously received free home to school transport, would have had to pay £380 per child, per year. For a family with two or three children, this would have been a great burden and was something that Gavin feared would be almost a tax upon education and opportunity.
Gavin was also concerned that many families might have been forced by financial pressures to send their children to schools outside of Staffordshire, in neighbouring authorities such as Wolverhampton. The outcome of this could have been a dramatic drop in pupil numbers in many local middle schools and high schools, jeopardising a number of excellent institutions.