Jenny Sullivan, a 42-year-old mother of three from a small village, is at the center of a heated debate regarding changes to the free school transport policy implemented by Monmouthshire council. The council just adopted new guidelines. Now, families like the Sullivans are left to figure out difficult logistics as the new school year approaches because miles qualifying for free transport have nearly tripled.
Sullivan’s 13-year-old child now walks to high school along a shared cycle path beside a road where vehicles travel at 50mph. In the meantime, Sullivan either drives or hikes her two youngest kids—10 and seven—over the border to Dell Primary in Chepstow. The shift in the transport policy has forced many parents—including her—to look for alternative childcare arrangements. This switch does not come without a big financial burden, costing a likely £25 a day for two children.
The Monmouthshire council is proposing to save £700,000 with a plan to increase the distance qualifying for free transport. They have introduced it now on a means tested basis for primary school children as little as two miles away and secondary school pupils on three miles. This policy has created a situation where parents are upset that their children are not being treated fairly. Sullivan points out that children living on neighboring streets still qualify for free transport, creating a divide within the village.
“I cannot understand why their friends living in the next street within the same village still have a bus space when they do not,” said Sullivan.
Beyond the technicalities of implementation, Sullivan laments how discriminatory changes like this serve to further traumatize, financially cripple, and destabilize the families in her community. She notices that some parents are having to walk almost 55 minutes each way just to get their little toddlers into school. At the same time, they’re watching buses roll by with empty seats. The frustration during our visit was accompanied by a strong sense of incredulity that this policy has, in reality, sliced the village in two.
“The policy has split the village in half,” she remarked.
Sullivan feels strongly that it is “physically impossible for young children to walk that distance twice a day, every day.” The recent re-mapping has resulted in her family now being charged for transport after having received it free of charge the last school year. Sullivan’s employer has been accommodating, allowing her to adjust her schedule to pick up her children while she awaits the outcome of an appeal against the council’s decision.
In response, Monmouthshire council has promised it would never let children walk where no safe route is available. But parents remain deeply concerned for their children’s safety. They further challenge the practicality of the new distances established by the policy.
