County council urged to scrap increased charges for school transport

A LOCAL authority has been urged to recognise the cost of living crisis by abandoning proposals to charge some pupils up to £100 more for home-to-school transport from September and drop all charges to low income families.

North Yorkshire County Council’s opposition leader, Stuart Parsons, said plans to levy an 18 per cent rise over the next one or two academic years on pupils who do not attend their most local school is “completely unacceptable”.

A meeting of leading officers and councillors on Tuesday will consider increasing the annual school transport charge for sixthformers by 5.24 per cent, in line with inflation, to £650. The meeting will also consider charging £50 extra over two years or £100 more from September for spare seats on buses available to children aged five to 16 who do not attend their most local school, bringing the annual bill to £650.

The meeting will hear while some councils offer low income families that can provide evidence of a means-tested benefit a 100 per cent school transport discount, it has been proposed the North Yorkshire authority continues to charge low income families 50 per cent of the fee.

A review of comparable largely rural councils to North Yorkshire found charges for post-16 school transport during the current year ranged from £50 to £1,007.

Calling on the council to drop the charges increase and exempt low income families from paying for school transport, Coun Parsons said: “They are constantly talking about keeping young people in the area, upskilling people so it becomes a high wage economy.

“But with this they are basically putting a tax on obligatory education, and that’s completely unacceptable.”

The executive member for education, Patrick Mulligan, was contacted for a comment.