The free service to areas within a two-mile radius has ended

A group of about 16 parents and their children took to the streets on Wednesday after a bus service provided by Caerphilly Council to Lewis School in Pengam, near Blackwood was terminated.

The service was put on while building work at the school took place.

The demonstrators are angry that their children are being asked to walk just under two miles to school.

The council have just said no point blank to having a school bus and it is very frustrating Diane Edwards, parent

But the local education authority has defended the decision not to renew the service.

Diane Edwards, whose son Ieuan, 11, is a pupil, said: "It is very worrying to think about him walking to school because I have got to work and can't take him.

"The council have just said no point blank to having a school bus and it is very frustrating.

"We are going to carry on campaigning," she added.

A Caerphilly council spokesman said an entrance to the school, which is within two miles of the pupils' homes, was now open after being closed during the building work.

"It is the council's policy that if pupils attending comprehensive school have to travel further than two miles from their homes to the nearest school entrance gates, free transport is made available," he said.

"During the past year, work on the new school playing fields has meant that the gates at the Gwerthonor Road entrance could not be used and so a different access point, further up the road, has been used instead."

He said that parents had been informed by letter that the free bus would be put on for pupils for one year only while that entrance was shut.

Parents received a second letter in June to tell them that the bus service would be coming to an end when the Gwerthonor Road gates - which lie within two miles of their homes - reopened.

He said that pupils who live outside the two-mile radius were eligible for free transport.

"It is national policy that free transport is only laid on for those comprehensive pupils living further than three-miles from their school, but Caerphilly Council works to a two-mile rule to allow far more children to receive free transport to school," added the spokesman.

But the parents have vowed to fight the decision and say that they are concerned for the safety of their children walking to school.

A new building for the school opened last September, paid for under the private finance initiative.