This week, we’ve seen issues of overcrowding on school transport, as some buses proved too small to ensure seats for all pupils on certain routes. In one extreme case last Friday, the number of pupils exceeded the safe and legal limit for the bus, so some pupils had to disembark the bus and phone their parents to come and pick them up. This is completely unacceptable. The council has a legal duty to provide under 16s with home to school transport if they live more than two miles from their nearest or catchment primary school, or more than three miles from their nearest or catchment secondary school.
School transport is a major financial responsibility for councils. In Monmouthshire, it costs an estimated £7million – more than many councils because of the large rural nature of our county. Yet Monmouthshire County Council doesn’t receive an extra money from Welsh Government in recognition of the additional costs of delivering services in a rural area. There are efficiencies that city councils can drive, that rural ones simply can’t.
I’m grateful to council officers, who have moved quickly to try to address these concerns, particularly in the Usk and Wye Valley areas by providing either larger vehicles or additional services. In all instances, the council was confident that safe and legal limits to passenger numbers were observed, but this meant that many pupils were standing on the bus all the way to school. While it meets the council’s definition of safe and legal, it is clearly unacceptable. No one wants their child standing all the way to school.
The Welsh Government’s guidance on home to school transport does permit standing on school buses, but should it? Again, it feels like the guidance has been designed for urban authorities where travel distances to school are short and generally in residential areas. Many of our routes are on derestricted narrow and bendy country lanes and dual carriageways with a 70mph limit.
My Conservative group has supported residents in recent days with these issues and in the weeks ahead will be pressing Welsh Government to review its guidance and consider better funding rural councils to recognise the extra costs of their home to school transport arrangements. Pupils’ safety must be the council’s top priority, but as well as box ticking the statutory criteria, we should also make sure that pupils feel safe. On that metric, councils and government must do better