Labour councillors have vowed to continue to campaign against proposals to end home to school buses for children across the Falkirk Council area.
The plan was due to be debated at a meeting of the education, children and young people’s executive on Tuesday but was continued to a full council meeting, in September at the earliest, as councillors demanded more
At the moment children under eight can get free transport if they live more than a mile from their school. It is proposed that should increase to two miles. Limits for children in secondary school would go up from two to three miles.
More than 1000 children would be affected and 33 bus services cut.
With opposition councillors set to oppose those plans, the SNP were due to try to defer a decision for a year to introduce steps to make it easier to use other ways of getting to school.
Labour wanted the proposals dropped altogether but agreed to calls for more information from council officials on how the changes will be implemented.
Upper Braes councillor Siobhan Paterson was leading Labour’s opposition with some pupils in her ward among the worst affected.
She said: “We could not in good conscience go ahead with implementing the recommendations of the report.
“There are far reaching implications of changing the distance criteria.
“While it is true it may be feasible for some, the practicality of asking families to walk two or three miles to school is unfeasible.
“Single parents, those on low income and care-experienced will all be detrimentally impacted by increasing walking distances.
“This has been yet another consultation that we have asked our residents to participate in and then disregarded their legitimate concerns against this proposal. It will be to our detriment if we want the public to have confidence in this council. These cuts are political choices being forced upon us by the chronic lack of funding from the Scottish government.
“In the shadow of covid when young people have lost out on so much and many are struggling with undiagnosed mental health issues we should not be placing further barriers to school attendance and learning.
“I hope the points in the SNP amendment are carried out, that we engage with bus companies so that utilising the national entitlement card is a feasible option. It's certainly not for my constituents in the Upper Braes, many are some distance from a bus route. I truly hope we can improve routes and active travel is enabled and encouraged. But these things should be done because they are of benefit to all, not at the cost of school buses.
“The Labour Group have opposed these cuts since they were outlined in the budget.
“We just do not believe, as is being claimed, that traffic problems around schools will not increase or that forcing children to walk these distances to school, and contend with Scottish weather, is going to improve their educational experience.”