Cheshire East is axing free buses for nearly 400 children at schools including Macclesfield.
Conservative, Independent and Labour councillors - together with Tytherington School headteacher Manny Botwe - pleaded with the council’s cabinet to put the safety of their pupils ahead of all other considerations after cabinet members were asked to reclassify five routes as safe.
They all argued that they were not safe and the removal of free buses for students living in affected areas would expose pupils to danger .
Coun John Weston, who represents Bollington on Cheshire East, urged the seven Conservative cabinet members making the decision to ‘examine your conscience’.
An online petition has so far gained more than 700 signatures.
But the protests were in vain and the cabinet decided that, from April, the children should walk up to six miles a day - in some cases along a dark, unlit, overgrown former railway line.
The Middlewood Way has been assessed as a 'safe' route by Cheshire East for children to walk to school.
Cabinet member for children Liz Durham said the council was axing the bus services in the interests of ‘equality not inequality’ because ‘many children across the borough already do walk quite regularly and safely to school’.
Coun Amanda Stott told cabinet members it is a ‘disused railway line and it runs in a deep cut and is heavily wooded on either side with water ditches and has no escape route for a child that feels threatened’.
She said: “The threat could come in the form of a school bully wanting easy dinner money or a predatory adult,” said Cllr Stott.
And she said it was wrong to put these children’s personal safety at risk to save ‘a meagre £102,000’.
Read more:
Read more:
Coun Mick Warren (Ind) told the cabinet he was a Macclesfield police sergeant in 2013 when he had been asked for his views on the Bollington to Tytherington route which he deemed to be ‘potentially unsafe for a variety of reasons’.
And Bollington councillor Jonathan Weston (Con) said: “It’s absolutely blindingly obvious to me that children will not follow the dark, damp route along the Middlewood Way under the bridges out of sight through the puddles and pools that form either side of this route, when there’s a perfectly safe route right across the dual carriageway with cars travelling at 70 miles an hour!
“You know, most youngsters would think that would be perfectly safe and much quicker and much clearer. And we can imagine what sort of consequences this might cause. You know, I really do think you need to examine your conscience on this one.”
Cllr George Hayes, deputy cabinet member for children, reiterated the council was not responsible for the personal safety of the children on their way to school.
Cabinet member Janet Clowes pointed out the obesity problems among Cheshire East children and said: “Obviously in terms of walking routes to school, that’s always been something I’m very keen on from a public health perspective.”
She added: “I am quite happy and confident in seconding this proposal today (to axe the bus services) bearing in mind that fail-safes have been put in place and that we can use them to make sure that the ultimate decisions are the right ones for our schools, our families and our children.”
The cabinet was unanimous in its decision that five walking routes to local schools are now available to be used by pupils – and that free school transport will be withdrawn for some students from April 2017.
