Good news for users of the 967 bus service

There was good news on Wednesday for users of the under-threat 967 school bus service.

After hearing from local parent Eva Hailstone and Westerleigh councillor Claire Young (both pictured left), the council’s Planning, Transport and Strategic Environment Committee voted unanimously to back a motion proposed by Pat Hockey to keep the 967 service along with several other threatened local bus routes.

The vote came after a campaign by local residents and Lib Dem councillors to save the 967 service, which serves pupils at Chipping Sodbury Secondary School and Brimsham Green School travelling from Westerleigh and other areas.
     
Claire said, "This is excellent news for all those local residents who fought to save this service. The 967 route covers a stretch of road without any footpath. Many parents are not in a position to drive their children to school and there was considerable concern that cutting this service would have left some children in Westerleigh without a safe route to school."

"Encouraging the use of public transport from an early age is vital if we want to see fewer cars on the road in the future. There will be a lot of relief locally that the service has been saved."

Bus service changes

Changes are in the pipeline for our local bus services.

Getting to Southmead hospital

Last week we told you there was good news on buses to Southmead hospital from our villages. Starting 13th April, First will be running service 82 hourly to Southmead via Cribbs and Parkway, leaving Yate at 6.20am until 7pm, with the last return from Southmead at 8pm. The 581 will be replaced by the 81, giving the option of a half hourly service to Southmead changing at Parkway or the longer hourly direct service.

First Bus changes

First are also renumbering other services and changing their timetables:

• The 689 becomes the X49 (see more below)
• The 342/X42 becomes the 47/X47.
• First will be running a commercial service, the X46, to replace the subsidised X27 that Wessex currently run. It will only go as far as Bristol bus station, not on to Anchor Road as the current service does, but it will extend beyond Yate to Chipping Sodbury. Wessex are looking to continue to run the X27 as a commercial service, but with reduced frequency.

Consultation on changes to subsidised services

South Glos Council is asking for your views on planned changes to some of the services it subsidises.

• The 689 Yate to Bristol service will be replaced by a new commercial service, X49, run by First, saving the council £40,000 in subsidy. It is good news for passengers as it will run earlier in the morning and later in the evening than the current service and will be extended to run on Sundays.
• The council plans to stop the experimental 222 Longwell Green-Chipping Sodbury service, which goes via Yate, Frampton Cotterell, Coalpit Heath and Kendleshire, to save £150,000.
• The 622 Cribbs Causeway to Chipping Sodbury service, which goes via the Stover Road area, Rangeworthy and Tytherington, would no longer run before 9am.

The council is also proposing to save £110,000 by no longer subsidising supported school services where the services are not readily available to the public and there are no pupils entitled to free transport using the routes. Instead they will support schools and parent groups to arrange their own transport.

Those that affect pupils in our area are:

• 680 – Frampton Cotterell – UWE – SGS Filton College (but the 81 offers an alternative service)
• 967 – South Yate – Chipping Sodbury Secondary School – Brimsham Green School (for which there is currently no alternative – one pupil has been using the service from Westerleigh village)

You can find out more and make comments on the South Glos website before the end of March.

Good news on school transport

The pupils already travelling by bus from Westerleigh to Pucklechurch school will continue to travel for free from September 2013 until they leave the school or move house.

You may recall the decision earlier in the year to end discretionary rural school transport. At the time we expected that pupils already travelling from Westerleigh to Pucklechurch would have to pay £120 per term from September 2013.

Officers have looked in more detail at the children affected. The nearest school, Wellesley, has no current vacancies. The routes to any primary school from Westerleigh are classed as hazardous. The decision has therefore been taken on balance to continue to provide free transport to Pucklechurch for the existing children as "hazardous route" transport.

For entrants to school in September 2013 onwards, any transport will be on the same basis as applies generally across the Authority, taking into account expressed parental preferences, home to school distances, nearest school and the nature of the route. The basic assumption is that you will only get free school transport if you put your nearest school as your first choice and there is no safe route to school or it is further than 3 miles away. But officers have listened to the concerns that Claire Young raised at the committee meeting about how the admissions and transport policies work together in rural areas. They will be monitoring the position closely.

Free school transport to end

Pupils living in most of Westerleigh will no longer be offered free school transport to Pucklechurch from September 2013.

Except for those whose homes are closer to Pucklechurch school than Wellesley, existing pupils will have to pay a concessionary fare of £120 per term (£360 per year). New pupils will be able to travel for the same fee if there is space but there is no guarantee a service will be provided once the existing pupils move on. Families on low incomes will not have to pay.

By law primary age children are entitled to free transport to their nearest school if there is no safe walking route. Since the village school closed, the council has provided free transport to Pucklechurch, even for pupils who live closer to the Yate school, but officers said this was unfair to others not offered similar special arrangements. The Children and Young People committee agreed.

Speaking in support of the service at the committee meeting last week, Claire Young raised wider concerns that rural children may be disadvantaged by the admissions and transport policies. Officers will look at this when they consult on the admissions policy later in the year.

Westerleigh-Pucklechurch school transport

The decision on the future of the Westerleigh to Pucklechurch school transport will be made at the Children and Young People's committee this week. The meeting starts at 10am on Wednesday 20th June in Thornbury. You can read the report on the South Glos website.

School transport update

Claire Young attended last week's Children and Young People's select committee to speak on the proposed removal of free school transport from Westerleigh to Pucklechurch. Officers confirmed that although the removal of free transport to denominational schools is intended to save money, they are not expecting significant savings from the changes to rural areas transport, instead it is about "equity". Claire queried the high admin figures being quoted for the discretionary fare scheme and asked for a breakdown of figures, as it would be terrible for families to be disrupted only for the council to end up spending more.

Claire made it clear that the starting point was not wanting the free transport to stop, but if it does the transitional arrangements need to be significantly beefed up, with free transport continuing for children already at the school. Parents may not have understood the intricacies of the legislation on school transport when choosing the school. She also queried whether the service could be guaranteed to run if some parents opted to make alternative arrangements. Officers said the Executive Member would consider all the responses to the consultation when making the decision, so if you are unhappy with the proposals, make sure you respond.

You have until 27th April to comment on the plans. You can do that online, email comments to SAPAdmin@southglos.gov.uk or write to Strategy, Access & Planning AdminDepartment for Children & Young People, PO Box 2082, Castle Street, Thornbury BS35 9BQ. Please let Claire know your views too.

New threat to Westerleigh-Pucklechurch school transport

Conservative-run South Gloucestershire Council is once again looking to remove the free school transport from Westerleigh to Pucklechurch. Under the plans, which you can read more about on the Council's website, children that currently use the service would be forced to pay a fare of £360 per year from September 2013 if they wanted to continue to use it. Parents would be responsible for transporting new pupils to school, unless spare seats were available. No charge would be made for low income families. The proposals would only effect children travelling to Pucklechurch School. There would be no change for any children travelling to the nearest primary school in Yate, who are entitled to transport due to there being no safe route to school. The changes are part of a review that would also see an end to free transport to denominational schools. You have until 27th April to comment on the plans. You can do that online, email comments to SAPAdmin@southglos.gov.uk or write to Strategy, Access & Planning AdminDepartment for Children & Young People, PO Box 2082, Castle Street, Thornbury BS35 9BQ. Please let Claire know your views too. This issue will be discussed at the Children and Young People's Select Committee meeting which starts at 2pm on Wednesday 7 March in Kingswood Civic Centre. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

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.