8:00am Thursday 9th September 2010
A FATHER is furious his son was denied a school bus place just two days before the new term.
While other pupils spent last weekend preparing to return to St Mary’s Roman Catholic High School, Dominic Lilley still wasn’t sure how he would get there after Herefordshire Council wrote to him last Friday.
Dad Darren said the family, from Whitecross in Hereford, were not Catholic and always knew Dominic, 13, might not get a seat as a result, but were disappointed notification did not come sooner.
“I understand they have to make difficult decisions but you can’t issue a letter on a Friday before they are due to go back to school on a Monday morning,” Darren said.
“It’s probably too late for us but I don’t want somebody else next year to be in the same position. They definitely need to wake up, there are far reaching implications to these decisions they are making.”
Darren and his wife, who both work in the city, were still trying to determine how they could accommodate a four-mile trip to Lugwardine every day when the Hereford Times spoke to them last week.
Darren said the dilemma was even more of a disappointment because council staff said a decision had not been reached when the couple phoned two weeks ago.
“I now have to tell my son that he’s not going to be doing the same routine.
It’s quite a big issue for a 13- year-old,” he added.
Admissions and transport manager Andrew Blackman said vacant seats that otherwise might have been available were occasionally taken up by eligible pupils who sometimes put their own applications in as late as the first week of term.
“The council has every sympathy with parents hoping to use one of the vacant seats and will continue to reinforce the message to parents of entitled pupils to get their transport applications to the transport team in good time,” he added.
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