News / Winter school bus runs under threat
MORE than 200 Shetland pupils will have to start making their own way to school during the winter months if plans to save the local authority £150,000 go through next week.
Shetland Islands Council’s development department estimates it will save £50,000 by reducing winter school bus runs for pupils who live close to their school.
Transport staff believe a further £100,000 could be saved if drivers stop picking up children who live off the main school bus route from their front doors.
The news has caused alarm in some rural communities who fear for the safety of their children if they are forced to walk or cycle to school or a pick up point in the dark on a busy road.
However each of Shetland’s 95 school bus routes is to receive an individual safety audit to assess whether the winter service should continue.
The proposals have been made as part of the SIC’s development department’s determination to reduce its budget by more than £3 million during the next financial year, a cut of almost 25 per cent.
Yet they will only go ahead if the SIC’s education and families committee agrees to change its school transport policy when it meets on Wednesday next week.
Education executive manager Shona Thompson said even then the final level of savings will not be known until bus operators come back with their tenders for all of Shetland’s redesigned bus routes by 14 May.
“If our committee decides it doesn’t want to go with this then that will mean the development department will have to think about where else they will find that money,” Thompson said.
“And until the tenders come back we won’t know the full impact of any of these proposed changes.”
Shetland has had a voluntary policy to transport pupils living more than one and half miles from the school by bus between October and Easter for many years.
Under the new proposal children under eight living less than two miles away, and children aged eight or over living less than three miles away, will have to make their own way to school all year round.
This could affect 222 pupils if the changes come into force from the start of the next school year in August.
However existing winter bus runs will continue if the route to school is deemed unsafe by foot or bicycle, for example if there is no road verge for the children to walk on.
Safety audits already show that the winter service will continue for some children living in Wester Skeld and Urafirth.
Bus operators have been in the habit of collecting children living off the school bus route from their front door, but transport staff have now calculated that if they stopped this practice and forced pupils to make their own way to the official pick up points, the council would save £100,000.
“This practice has gone on for years and years and years, and people are very comfortable with it,” Thompson said.
“But we are at the stage where everything is having to be considered and (transport staff) seem to think this will mean shorter routes so it will not cost quite so much.
“That remains to be seen and it all depends on what tenders come back.”
The council school bus transport proposals can be viewed here.
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