Parents of Polesworth School Students living in Warton are celebrating after winning a case to ensure their children would not have to walk an unsafe route to school each weekday morning and evening.
The Warton to Polesworth School bus campaign, organised by local mums Joanne Scrivens-Parry, Tina Baines and Lynn Prestage, has made headlines as parents protested against a Council decision to raise the cost of transport or children would be faced with having to walk to near five mile round trip each school day. The Warton Parents’ campaign was supported by North Warwickshire’s Member of Parliament Craig Tracey.
Local parent Lynn Prestage commented:
“We are delighted that our campaign has made such a difference. We were very concerned that our children would be forced to walk for an hour to school and back every day with busy country roads, poor lighting, lack of kerbs and a blind bend.”
Craig Tracey MP, who took the case to both the Education and Transport Ministers in Parliament, said:
“This is a fantastic victory for local families and well deserved. I am glad that the common sense has prevailed and the Council has recognised the route is unsafe and listened to residents.”
The Action Group and local MP recently arranged for County Council Leader Izzi Seccombe to join him and parents to walk the route on a weekday morning to show the dangerous of the country road, bad lighting and blind spots on the way to Polesworth.
The Campaign had won a reprieve when the Council promised to fund the route at the same cost level for at least one more school year.
Now the campaign has been successful with Council Portfolio Holder Colin Hayfield stating:
“We have listened to local experiences and have reassessed this route and Members have walked the route themselves to experience first hand the concerns of local families. We continue to have concerns about the assessment outcome.
“WCC is no longer prepared to accept at face value the reliability of this criteria and so we would wish to explore updating the criteria through considering adjustments relevant to Warwickshire community needs and patterns of usage of our roads."
Joanne Scrivens-Parry a parent in Warton concluded:
"It's a huge relief to see that we are finally being listened to, and that the council finally have realised that the assessment criteria just do not work in an area such as ours."