Pupils demand action over 'always late' school bus

Punctuality is drummed into us from an early age. But for a group of youngsters from Essex, being unintentionally late for school has become the norm.

It is about 07:45 and groups of children are starting to form at a bus stop in the village of Great Notley, near Braintree, ready to start their 30-minute journey to school.

As their pick-up time draws nearer, 12-year-old Finley says he is "really annoyed because it's late most days, from five minutes to half an hour, and sometimes it doesn't even turn up".

The scheduled departure time of 07:52 comes and goes, and the bus to Helena Romanes School in Great Dunmow eventually arrives to pick up about a dozen students at 08:03.

According to head teacher Catherine Davis, about 40 pupils are regularly affected by ongoing issues with the 331 route, operated by Central Connect.

The bus company says the vehicle left its depot on time but arrived at this stop 11 minutes late because of traffic on the A120.

It says other services were delayed because of the recent cold weather, which "presents lots of challenges".

But while waiting for his lift to school in -1C (30F) temperatures on Wednesday, 11-year-old Logan said it was "appalling how it's so late every day".

He recalls waiting an hour for his bus home on a recent cold afternoon: "We had to go under a shelter because it was raining as well… I needed warming up.

"It's just annoying, really, that we have to be at school so late. It's just sad that they don't seem to care as much about how late we are into school. They could do better, I feel."

His classmate Emily, 12, says it is "just annoying because we're always late for our first lesson".

Their head teacher fears parents and carers could move their children to other schools if these issues continue.

"The bus company has got to get this sorted as soon as possible," she says.

Peter Nathanail, managing director of Central Connect, says it has worked with the school to implement changes.

A new timetable was introduced last week, he says, based on traffic data from the last school term.

"Clearly what's happened is the traffic has got even worse and even that revised timetable is proving unachievable because the bus just gets stuck in a traffic jam," he told BBC Essex breakfast presenter Sonia Watson.

He says data will be monitored over the coming weeks before further timetable changes are made.

The company said it was committed to changing timetables "where feasible... but we have to follow a 10 week statutory process to do this".

Nathanail continued: "It's always a balancing act because of course we want to get [the children to school] on time, but we don't want to have to ask them to get out of their houses any earlier than is absolutely necessary."

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