Consultation on school transport

A public consultation on reducing pupils’ eligibility for free school transport is expected to get under way on Monday.

Councillors on North Lanarkshire’s education committee were being asked to approve the start of the exercise – seeking views on proposals to increase the qualifying distances for transport provision yesterday afternoon.

Pupils living more than one mile from their catchment primary and two miles from their secondary school currently receive free transport.

But the proposal under consideration is to change that policy to the statutory requirement of two miles from primaries and three from high schools.

A report for councillors projects that 1916 primary and 2670 secondary pupils would be affected by the reduced entitlement, with 723 and 2838 respectively remaining eligible; and that savings could total nearly £2.4million.

The paper adds:“it should be noted that this proposal does not affect the transport arrangements for pupils with additional support needs.”