A LEGAL challenge has been launched over North Yorkshire County Council's home-to-school transport policy and the authority says it could cost taxpayers £300,000 each year.

Providing free home-to-school transport for eligible pupils is a statutory duty for councils and North Yorkshire allows pupils who don’t qualify for free transport to buy empty seats on a first-come-first-served basis.

There are currently 900 children who buy these spare places but the council is facing a private legal challenge from a disability rights campaigner who is arguing that where the council sells a spare seat, the bus must then be wheelchair accessible.

Most buses operated by companies under school transport contracts with the council are not suitable for wheelchairs as they are from older fleets or are tour coaches.

Buses used for free home to school transport do not need to be able to accommodate wheelchairs so if North Yorkshire was not charging for the spare seats it would be legally compliant; but because it offers up spare places to paying students it is at risk of unwittingly contravening Equality Act regulations.

The private challenge is testing the current legislation.

Cllr Don Mackenzie, Executive Member for Access, said: “These home to school transport arrangements are widely used by councils up and down the land.

“We, along with many other councils, have believed that home to school transport was exempt from the regulations.

"The regulations were designed for commercial bus services and it cannot have been the intention of the law that simply selling one or two spare seats on home to school transport should mean buses then have to be accessible."

The Northern Echo:

Cllr Don Mackenzie

Cllr Mackenzie said selling spare seats helps to reduce congestion and also generates more than £300,000 for the council annually.

He added: “Supporting students with special educational needs and disabilities is a priority for North Yorkshire and we run our own fleet of wheelchair accessible mini buses and use wheelchair accessible taxis whenever needed.

"We have provided our home-to-school services in good faith and always believed we complied with our equality duties.”

At its meeting on September 3, the council's Executive will consider proposals to address the challenge with recommendations to continue to transport children in spare seats who are not entitled to free transport and to stop charging them while the council seeks clarification from the

DfT

that the existing method is lawful.

In the absence of clarification or change in the legal framework, it is proposed that the council will have to consider whether it will withdraw this discretionary service from the start of the 2020/21 academic year.

Cllr Mackenzie said: “This challenge to current practice will cost the council over £300,000 every year in lost income to the service and may ultimately result in significant disruption and inconvenience for 900 children and their families if they are no longer able to travel in these spare seats.

“Ironically it will do little if anything to improve access to home to school transport for disabled children.

"We are appealing to the DfT to intervene and apply common sense to settle this issue as a matter of some urgency.”