Subsidy cuts spark anger
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Plans to slash student transport funding PLANS to axe transport subsidies for school students have been slammed this week.
The Warwickshire County Council-planned cuts, due to come into force in September, are expected to hit the families of children travelling from Shipston and the surrounding rural areas of south Warwickshire particularly hard as there is no sixth form in the town, meaning most children have to takes buses or coaches to sixth form colleges elsewhere.
However, a campaign against the cuts is gaining momentum and this week Shipston Town Council added its voice to the protests.
At the council’s meeting on Monday, councillors backed a call for the county council to carry on subsidising coach travel for post-16 education and for younger pupils who have to get buses to colleges in Stratford, Leamington and Moreton Morrell.
Shipston town councillors said that if families have to pay the extra costs of getting pupils to college it will become a “serious disincentive to continuing education”.
Town councillor Jackie Warner said she was paying £300 a year for one of her daughters to travel to Moreton Morrell College and had been told that could go up to £800 a year without subsidies. “If they did it for my other daughter who goes to Stratford that would be £1,600,” said Coun Warner.
The campaign against the cuts is being led by members of the Southern Area Association of Secondary Heads (SASH) chaired by Shipston High School headteacher Jonathan Baker.
Mr Baker said: “We are different from places like Stratford and Chipping Campden where there is a sixth form. It’s a real knock back for sixth formers.”
He said the cuts would also have an impact on pupils doing South Warwickshire Initiative for Training (SWIFT) courses, who currently get free transport to get them to college one day a week to study vocational subjects such as agriculture, public services, mechanics, plumbing, building and hairdressing.
Shipston High School chairman of governors, former Conservative district councillor Trevor Russel, called on the Conservative-controlled county council to delay implementation of the cuts for a year to allow other options to be considered.
Councillor Izzi Seccombe, cabinet member for children, young people and families, said the cuts, which are expected to save the council £1.3million over three years, are needed as part of “very tough decisions” being faced by the cash-strapped authority.
By: Cotswold Journal
