MP wants schools allowed to run bus services

THE Government has been urged to back proposals to let schools run their own bus services.

Northumberland County Council wants to change the way pupils get to school in the county so that it no longer relies on commercial bus services.

It follows complaints that bus firms are charging too much.

But Berwick MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan told Ministers that the councils would need the support of the Government to introduce a new system.

Asking for funding, she said: “I call on the Minister to pump-prime a Northumberland project that puts education and transport needs at its heart.”

Northumberland pupils could travel long distances to get to school, she said, and the catchment area for Glendale valley schools is some 250 square miles.

But bus companies are failing to offer good value for money, the MP claimed.

She told the House of Commons: “Continuing to pay bus companies large sums of money to provide limited services, and charging post-16 students’ families more than £600 per year per pupil for transport passes, is simply unsustainable.”

She added: “Surely this is money that could be spent on frontline teaching, education resources and tools to give our children the very best chance in life, which is what a country such as the United Kingdom should be affording them wherever they live.”