North Yorkshire councillors have voted to keep in place a new home-to-school transport policy despite months of criticism of the change from parents and opposition members.

Members of the authority voted by 45 votes to 35 against a motion to revert to the previous system at a special meeting at County Hall, in Northallerton, this morning.

Councillors agreed the authority would only offer free school transport to a child’s nearest school, rather than using the previous catchment system to determine eligibility.

The meeting was called by opposition councillors who wanted the authority to cancel the policy change previously agreed in July last year.

Councillors arrived at the meeting to a protest from around 100 parents affected by the new rules.

The public gallery was packed during the meeting with a live link provided to another meeting room to allow the public to watch proceedings if they could not fit into the main council chamber.

Council bosses argued that the change was needed to reduce annual costs of more than £50m for home-to-school transport.

They said the move to provide the statutory minimum level of service would deliver savings of up to £4.2m.

But critics said the new system may actually cost money to implement, and was damaging to pupils, schools and rural communities.