1,000 signatures reached
To: Bridget Phillipson, Louise Haigh, Leader of North Yorkshire Council
Stop North Yorkshire Council implementing their Home - School Transport Policy
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The Action Group that has been working on informing North Yorkshire Council members about the impact that the changed Home School Transport Policy will have on children, families, communities and schools has been unable to influence sufficient council members to reject the proposed policy that has now been accepted.
We ask that the Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Transport ask for an investigation into the council's consultation process, rationale and factual accuracy of information that was provided to councillors and the general public.
Ultimately we are asking the leader of North Yorkshire Council to realise the negative impact this policy will have on this area and to allow the council to rescind their decision, or at least to make an exemption for Swaledale and Arkengarthdale.
We ask that the Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Transport ask for an investigation into the council's consultation process, rationale and factual accuracy of information that was provided to councillors and the general public.
Ultimately we are asking the leader of North Yorkshire Council to realise the negative impact this policy will have on this area and to allow the council to rescind their decision, or at least to make an exemption for Swaledale and Arkengarthdale.
Why is this important?
They say it takes a village to raise a child. It certainly takes families with children to maintain a community like ours. A recent policy change by North Yorkshire Council threatens to make our community fail, with implications for all.
The Council has decided it will no longer provide free school transport for children living in our dales if they want to go to Richmond School. It will pay for children to go to the nearest of Leyburn, Barnard Castle or Kirkby Stephen schools, each entailing winter journeys over mountain passes. But not for the safest, cheapest, and most sensible option that keeps Swaledale and Arkengarthdale children together at Richmond school. I know it sounds like a wind up. It isn't.
This decision is already causing nightmares in families with children in Year 6 who must decide what to do in the next few weeks, and have been given no sensible guidance to help them.
If this policy continues, families with the freedom to choose will no longer choose to live in our two dales. There will soon be even fewer working age families than there are now. Reeth and Gunnerside schools will close. Businesses will close. Services will disappear. So please don’t ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for us.
People make the dales, the children their families and their communities. Without them it will be a wilderness!
People make the dales, the children their families and their communities. Without them it will be a wilderness!
We need councillors to overturn their decision. If we present a petition with over 500 signatures councillors must consider it. The last petition fell just short of this number. If we present a petition with over a 1,000 signatures, and present it with some pizzazz, it will wake up those councillors who were asleep at the wheel when they voted for this awful policy. So please, please sign this petition.
How it will be delivered
Emailing a link to the petition to parents and the local communities
