Cuts mean Great Glen mum has to follow son's taxi to school

Isla and Ciaran's mother said the situation was "ridiculous"

A mother who has to drive her daughter to school behind her son while he travels in a free taxi has branded the situation "ridiculous".

Leicestershire County Council pays for Ciaran's transport to school.

But it has scrapped a scheme which allowed his mother Arleta to buy a seat on the journey for his sister Isla.

Arleta, from Great Glen, called the decision "incomprehensible" and said it has left her doing an unnecessary school run twice a day.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "It's a ridiculous situation. Basically, the taxi comes, picks up my son and I take my daughter, put her in the car and we follow the taxi. And then the reverse in the afternoon.

"I am a working mother, so longer term I cannot do the school run every day.

"But I cannot justify having one child be picked up from the front door, and waking the other up an hour earlier to ask them to walk the 6km (3.7 miles) to school."

Isla and Ciaran used to be able to take the same taxi

Since he started at Manor High School in Oadby, Ciaran has had free transport in the form of a taxi because he was not given a place at a nearer school.

But his sister, 12, did not qualify for the free transport because Arleta opted to send her to the same school.

Last year, she was able to purchase Isla a seat in the same taxi as her son for £800.

When she went to do the same for this academic year, she found the scheme had been cancelled.

Arleta said the decision was "incomprehensible" given the council is having to borrow millions due to increasing financial pressure.

A freedom of information request revealed that 393 seats had been brought over the past five years. At £800 a seat, that amounted to a total of £314,400.

She said: "As a taxpayer I am incensed that the council is willing to forego this income, while considering cutting services further and of course increasing bills for all.

"We subsidised the council service [by buying a seat for Isla last year], while lowering the carbon footprint by not adding another car journey, and lowering traffic around the school."

Councillor Ozzy O'Shea, cabinet member for highways and transport, recognised the scheme did generate income for the council but said declining use and new government rules meant they had to reconsider.

He said: "We're talking to the family. The fare-paying scheme was discretionary and fewer children use the service year after year.

"The scheme did serve a useful purpose in generating income... but recent government regulations have insisted the vehicles need to be fully accessible, for example to wheelchair users.

"Like other councils, we believe the cost of adapting the buses so they fit the regulations would outweigh the income we receive from a relatively small number of farepayers, which was 15 last year.

"We appreciate it's a different situation with taxis to buses so we'll be looking at ways of adapting it."