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23
Mar
Campaigners consider legal challenge over council’s new home-to-school transport policy
A campaign group is considering legal action over a controversial change to the home-to-school transport policy made by North Yorkshire Council.
The School Transport Action Group (STAG) says it is taking professional advice on whether the authority acted lawfully in its implementation of the changes.
The group claims it has evidence that the council made mistakes that left parents “confused and misled”.
Campaigners say hyperlinks on the council’s website took users through to the old home-to-school policy, with the links only removed this month.
The group claims other errors include conflicting advice on school selection and references to ‘catchment’ on application forms.
Members say they also believe the authority may have failed to meet government regulations on communicating the policy change to parents and making mistakes in calculating the nearest schools for some families.
STAG said that as well as exposing the council to a potential legal challenge, the claimed mistakes could mean “an avalanche of appeals” from angry parents who have been denied a school bus pass for their child.
A spokesperson for the group said:
We don’t believe the council followed the correct procedures and as a result, families have been left in the dark.
The fallout from this mess is becoming far too big to ignore.
Our attempts at getting them to see reason and admit that things need to change are falling on deaf ears.
Given they refuse to listen to the people, we have no choice other than to start considering legal options.
Councillors voted in July last year to change the policy so that eligible pupils could only get free transport to their nearest school, rather than their catchment school.
The policy has been altered in a bid by the authority to reduce its annual bill for school transport of around £50m.
But critics say the move is causing numerous issues for families, including siblings at different schools with different holiday dates, children being separated from friend groups, parents having to pay for transport to grammar schools and concerns that routes to nearest schools in the Pennines will not be safe for children to use in winter.
North Yorkshire Council declined to comment on the threat of legal action.
But at a council meeting on Monday, Amanda Newbold, assistant director for education and skills, said the authority believed that all regulations regarding the implementation of the policy had been adhered to.
She added:
I am confident that communications about the policy change have been widespread and have taken place over the course of a year.
I do not believe that this is a last-minute policy change. I believe communication has been both proactive and responsive.
The council is set to hold an extraordinary meeting to discuss the policy change after a request was submitted by opposition councillors.
No date for the meeting has yet been set, although it could provisionally take place on May 21 before a full council meeting scheduled for that day.
Council chiefs have previously stated the policy would not be reviewed until 2026 after a year of implementation.
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