Taxi Bill For Sending Boy To School To Reach £80,000
5th July 2009
The parents of a 10-year-old boy have called for an urgent review of spending by local authorities after learning that it will cost taxpayers more than £80,000 to send him to school in a taxi.
Daniel Foulds-Holt will have to go to Steyning Grammar School, West Sussex, by taxi because no buses run to it from his home in the remote hamlet of Edburton, near Henfield.
However, buses do run from outside his front door to his first choice of secondary school, Downlands in Hassocks.
Daniel lost out on Downlands because he lives 350 metres outside its recently-amended five-mile catchment area.
His parents, Jeremy Holt and Ros Foulds, are happy for him to go to Steyning but appalled at the huge cost involved.
The return journey will cost West Sussex County Council around £80 a day for five years.
Mrs Foulds, 45, a psychologist, said: "It makes no sense at all. It puts my son in a ridiculous position, it's a financial waste and it's environmentally damaging.
"He would have preferred to have gone to Downlands but is happy to go to Steyning. It's just how he will get there that's the problem."
She added: "This is about the county council drawing up boundaries without any regard to transport. They would rather stick with their rules - even though they are ridiculous."
Since learning of the costs likely to be incurred by her son, Mrs Foulds has submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act to discover how much West Sussex is paying out in taxi fares in total.
She was astonished to learn that the bill had risen from £4,301,629 in 2004-5 to £5,588,500 in 2008/9.
Although most is spent on children with special needs, £864,615 of last year's outlay was spent on children without such issues.
"We can all understand spending money on taxis for children with special needs, but what shocks me is that not far short of £1m is being spent on people like Daniel who could get on a bus.
"In our case the council could end up paying £16,000 a year which is totally unnecessary. If the spending on school taxis by West Sussex County Council is similar to the rest of the country then the cost must be huge."
Peter Griffiths, the council's cabinet member for education, said the submissions by Daniel's parents would form part of a detailed review of its school travel and admissions policies.
Source; telegraph.co.uk
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