Threat to Westerleigh-Pucklechurch transport

On Monday, Claire Young and other Lib Dem Councillors asked South Gloucestershire Council’s ruling Tory cabinet to abandon proposals to cut school transport for primary school pupils from a number of villages including Westerleigh.

Claire had spotted that the figures for the Transport review, published in the papers for the most recent Planning, Tranport and Strategic Environment Select committee, included a saving of £75,000 by ending some rural school transport. After it became clear that the officer presenting the report at the meeting had no further details, Lib Dem Councillors pursued the issue with officers outside the meeting and eventually discovered that the routes in question were:

Westerleigh - Pucklechurch Primary
Tormarton - Trinity Primary, Acton Turville
Badminton - Trinity Primary, Acton Turville
Tytherington, Itchington, Earthcott - St Helens Primary, Alveston

At Cabinet, Claire called on the administration to honour the commitment made by a previous Council to provide the Westerleigh-Pucklechurch service, highlighting the benefits both for pupils and the school of continuing the service and the problems that would be caused if the parents used cars instead or had to remove their children from the school at short notice.

One very important fact that appears to have been overlooked is that if the service to Pucklechurch was stopped, the Council would have to provide free transport to the nearest schools in Yate instead. This may well cost as much, if not more than, the current service as multiple schools may be involved. Certainly the Council could not expect to save anything like the whole cost of the current service.

Although initially the Executive Member for Planning, Transport and the Strategic Environment said the cost per pupil was huge and it needed to be looked at, after a lengthy discussion, the Leader of the Council promised that all parties on the Council would be consulted on the details of how savings would be made before the Cabinet made a decision. Watch this space for further updates.