County Council to axe free transport to faith schools, sign our petition.

11.24.41pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 6th Jun 2006

Malcolm cowan fighting for children's rights.

Herts County Council have now finished consultation on their plans to end the entitlement to free travel to faith schools - C of E, Roman Catholic and Jewish. The change would apply to all new pupils at the schools from September 2007. Because faith schools are fewer in number than non-faith schools, the distances travelled tend to be longer.

The consultation showed that our policy of allowing all schoolchildren living over 3 miles from their school, would cost £5.5m per year for all secondary pupils, and take thousands of cars off Hertfordshire roads.

The move to axe faith school transport has been attacked by Liberal Democrats. Malcolm Cowan, the county councillor for Handside and Peartree in WGC says 'We see this primarily as a transport issue - inevitably more pupils will be transported by car at a time when the roads are already at their most congested. It is also an issue of equity - having provided faith schools, which are very largely funded by the County Council, why should pupils be penalised because their parents have made a free choice from the schools available?'

What you can do:

Write to the county council at Freepost HJ71, School Transport Consultation, County Hall, SG13 8DF, or please sign our online petition.

To sign electronically, please follow the navigation link on the left.

Or, collect signatures. To collect signatures, please download our petition form and collect signatures in your area. Please return your completed petition forms to Malcolm Cowan, 6 Lytton Gardens, Welwyn Garden City.

There is still time to sign our online petition.