The issue of school transport in Bridgend garnered more media attention recently, this time focused on Maesteg.
Bridgend Council maintains that it operates within Welsh Government guidelines. As far as I know, that’s indeed the case.
Parents in the county have been told for quite some time now that the Welsh Government are reviewing the rules for school transport, but nothing has yet been forthcoming.
There are several issues at play so I thought I’d do “a long one” and go through those issues in more detail and examine why school transport poses so many problems for Bridgend Council and parents/guardians.
The money issue
Cuts to learner transport (school and college alike) have appeared in most council budgets over the last few years.
The most recent changes – which I understand came into force in time for the 2021-22 academic year – were reported to save the council up to £775,000. As recently as 2019-20, there was said to be an overspend of anything up to £1.1million on learner transport.
More radical reforms have been proposed, but none of them has made the table probably because the council has little wriggle room in terms of time and money.
Learner transport is a net drain on council finances at the worst possible time, but it’s quite clear that legal minimum service is nowhere near enough to satisfy demand.
The minimum distances
Bridgend Council offers free home-school transport to pupils living beyond the legal minimum boundaries of 2 miles (3.2km) for primary school pupils and 3 miles (4.8km) for secondary school pupils.
These boundaries are strictly enforced. As has been raised in the media consistently for the last several years, if children live even a few metres within the limit, they’re not eligible for free school transport.
It also means that pupils who are eligible for free transport to primary school – particularly Welsh-medium and faith school pupils, who have a smaller number of schools to go to in the county – may lose eligibility for free transport as soon as they move to secondary school as the boundary moves further away.
Pupils living within the boundaries have to make their own way to school. This can either be via a “paying place” on a scheduled school bus (where they’re offered), walking, cycling/scooting or – as sizable proportion opt for – having parents or guardians drop them off by car.
The policy push by Bridgend Council and the Welsh Government is towards walking and cycling. Based on how things often are in the mornings and afternoons, the car usually seems to be the winner.
Are walking and cycling routes safe?
As far as I’m aware, pupils living within the minimum boundaries are still eligible for free transport if they don’t live along what has been assessed by the council to be a safe route to and from school.
While most of the media attention has been focused on Welsh-medium and faith school pupils, it affects pupils attending English-medium secondary schools too.
Brynteg students who live in Litchard or the “Coity end” of Brackla, for example, are well within a 3-mile radius of the school. However, when you account for the actual route they would need to take on foot or by bike this can get close to 3 miles.
While there has been some noticeable investment in upgrading walking and cycling routes, there continue to be issues such as:
- “stop-start” improvements rather than a single joined-up route of the same standard throughout; for example, a decent shared surface route may suddenly change into a narrow pavement or a bit of paint/lines on the tarmac.
- investment being focused in the wrong areas; Pencoed-Bridgend active travel has received a lot of funding compared to other routes commonly used to and from secondary schools (Coychurch to Pencoed Comprehensive aside).
- routes that are fine for adults, but perhaps not for younger children; this could include areas with poor lighting, narrow pavements, slippery/uneven surfaces or where you sometimes have to walk on the road.
- general issues along some routes that are not specific to the route itself – i.e. encountering drunks, anti-social behaviour, pavement parking – are too easily dismissed.
I was recently provided with a route audit for Litchard – Bridgend town centre undertaken in 2017. It concluded that Litchard Hill to Bridgend via Coity Road is suitable for secondary and primary school-age pupils.
This is despite there being no pedestrian crossing facilities at Litchard Cross; there are islands/refuges, but no toucan/pelican crossings – as an adult I’ve often found it difficult to cross there when it’s busy. My understanding is Coity Community Council’s access plan aims to address this but is dependent on funding.
The pavement along Coity Road often varies in width and is absent opposite Brook Street. There’s also a glaring error where a traffic assessment is listed as being in Nantymoel, but I assume that’s a labelling issue, not a number one. There is no set timescale for these audits which means the council has a great deal of discretion in when to carry them out – if they opt to do so at all.
Too much stick, not enough carrot?
As mentioned, the policy of the Welsh Government and council is to encourage children to walk or cycle to school.
As long as there’s a safe route, the distance doesn’t matter that much. A healthy secondary school student ought to be able to walk 3 miles in 45 minutes and cycle it in 15 or less.
Daily exercise isn’t going to kill them (and may even put them at an advantage in some respects), while secondary-age pupils ought to know how to cross a road safely; it’s insulting their intelligence to think they don’t know how to. One of the reasons the roads are so dangerous in the mornings and afternoons is because of the additional traffic caused by children being driven to and from school; we all know that, yet everyone else has to bend over backwards to accommodate that not the other way around.
The issue is whether anywhere near enough has been done to positively reinforce or reward “making the right choice” and breaking that cycle.
That’s up to politicians and schools, but you can’t just take things away from people that they’ve gotten used to without offering an incentive to change behaviour. Those incentives – other than improved health by walking and cycling regularly – have been completely absent in this discussion.
