Council mess up school passes 25/8/14
Parents say they were kept in the dark that school buses around the wider Laxdale district were being axed.
School buses no longer serve the Benside, Bakers’ Road, Marybank and Newvalley villages because of council cuts.
Most affected parents only found out school bus service was abolished after complaining travel passes failed to arrive in time for children returning to classes at the Nicolson Institute after the holidays last week.
It resulted in council officials rushing around houses, delivering letters by hand some 36 hours or so before term started, it is maintained.
The letters said parents would get another letter about the missing bus passes the following day which would provide temporary permission for pupils to get a seat.
Mrs Munro said: “Parents who got bus passes for their children are not getting what they paid for.”
The buses were axed under cutbacks agreed by councillors which saw the minimum home-
The present cuts were delayed until the new, reduced school bus contract started last week.
A council spokesman conceded there were communications problems about the bus passes.
He said: “It is fair to say there was an issue of non-
Affected families received a letter which acted as a temporary bus pass, he highlighted.
A similar blunder affected primary pupils in the Laxdale two years ago when letters explaining bus pass cuts were not delivered when they should have been.