Bus service put on after school children stranded set to be cut

A bus firm has said it understands family "frustration and stress" over plans to remove a service which was introduced after some school pupils were left stranded.

The extra provision between Dumfries and Thornhill was introduced in August - backed by Dumfries and Galloway Council (DGC) and transport body Swestrans - to "prevent immediate disruption" to education.

However, operator McCalls Coaches said the service would end on 1 July and warned it would have to deny travel once its bus reached capacity.

DGC said the annual cost of providing the service - about £44,000 - was "unsustainable" and it had no legal requirement to provide free transport for non-catchment pupils.

The issues began in August when some pupils were unable to travel from Dumfries to Wallace Hall Academy - about 16 miles (25km) away in Thornhill - after new bus contracts began.

It prompted the local authority and its transport partnership to step in and provide an additional service alongside the existing one.

McCalls Coaches said that after the summer holidays it would no longer be running the additional service due to issues "outwith our control".

"We will run our bus to capacity but as soon as we are full unfortunately we will have to deny travel as it would be unsafe and illegal to be overloaded," it said.

"We are really limited as to what we can do here or how to help. It wasn't our decision to make."

It urged people with complaints to put them in writing and send them to Swestrans and said it was "truly sorry" for any inconvenience.

The council said that along with the local transport partnership it had stepped in when some pupils had been unable to use the 246 commercial bus service to get to school.

It allowed an extra bus to operate "temporarily" on the same route at a weekly cost of more than £1,000.

It stressed that pupils attending a school outside their catchment area had no entitlement to free school transport.

At present 226 of Wallace Hall Academy's school roll of 572 are non-catchment with 178 of them coming from Dumfries.

The Swestrans board agreed late last month that the provision of the additional bus would cease on 1 July.

The council said it recognised the implications and had informed parents and carers so that they could either move schools or consider alternative travel arrangements.

It said it would work with everyone connected with the school to "support the transition" to the new academic year.