The education secretary has blasted a Reform council leader’s “Victorian” proposal to extend the distance children can legally be expected to make their own way to school up to five miles.
George Finch, Reform UK leader of Warwickshire County Council (WCC), has called for local authorities to be given powers to extend statutory walking distances to help cash-strapped councils cut down on their school transport spend.
Bridget Phillipson accused Reform of “taking our children back to the Victorian era”, while Liberal Democrat MP Manuela Perteghella described the idea as “cruel, short-sighted” and dangerous for children.
“No child should have to trek in the rain for five miles just to get to school,” said Perteghella.
Council’s transport cost soars to £50m
DfE statutory walking distances help determine if a child is eligible for free transport to and from school, provided by their local authority.
Children under eight are eligible for free travel if their nearest suitable school is more than two miles away. For children eight or above, the distance is over three miles.
The guidance states that when a child lives within the statutory distance, “there is no expectation [they] will walk. It is for the parent to determine what arrangements would be suitable”.
In a letter to Bridget Phillipson, Finch said WCC currently transports more than 10,000 pupils to schools, with the cost of the service soaring from £17.9m in 2018-19 to more than £50m this financial year.
Despite steps to “improve efficiencies and minimise costs” the council predicts the cost will rise to around £80m in the next five years, said Finch.
But WCC analysis suggests increasing the statutory walking distance by one mile “could reduce our eligible cohort by eight per cent”, says Finch. Extending it by two miles would mean a reduction of “approximately 16 per cent”.
Finch is calling for the government to give local authorities power to “change this statutory eligible walking distance where it makes sense to do so in a local area”.
“Clearly, the local authority would assess the potential impacts of such a change, and undertake all necessary public consultations,” he added.
Reform ‘taking children back to Victorian era’
But Phillipson firmly shot down the plans, writing on X: “So you’re asking for powers to make kids walk five miles to school as we head into winter?” She accused WCC of “taking our children back to the Victorian era.”
Perteghella, the MP for Stratford-upon-Avon, also hit back at the plan, saying it would “punish families” and “put children’s safety at risk”.
“Reform’s new school travel approach is cruel, short-sighted and completely out of touch with the realities facing families in Warwickshire,” she said.
“Reform wants to turn the clock back by decades, whilst parents are already struggling with rising costs and patchy public transport.”
She said the answer to balancing the books for local authorities was “to properly fund councils so they can deliver safe, reliable school transport”.
Nicola Pastore, co-founder of charity Solve the School Run, said many families are currently forced to drive children to school causing school-run congestion, while families without a car can struggle.
“Expanding the statutory walking distance will make these problems worse,” she said. “The way to reduce school transport costs in the long term, is to first invest in walking and cycling infrastructure that is safe enough for children to travel on independently, as they do in many European countries.”
Half a million pupils eligible
New DfE data published on Tuesday shows 520,000 pupils are thought to travel to school using LA-funded transport.
This includes around 470,000 pupil under 16 years old – representing around six per cent of that cohort. Around 40 per cent are eligible because of their special educational needs, and 60 per cent are eligible because of other reasons, such as distance from school.
Responding to these figures, school leaders’ union NAHT criticised “a growing number of councils” that are “reducing transport provision due to increasing budgetary pressures”.
“When children simply cannot get to school this threatens to deepen existing attainment gaps and place even more pressure on already stretched parents.”
One of Reform UK’s key pre-election pledges was to identify efficiencies and savings through a pilot of its own Elon Musk-style DOGE unit.
But the party was accused of flying in the face of that pledge this month, after it emerged Reform UK-run Kent County Council plans to raid £2 million from schools’ budgets to pay for services it can no longer afford, and admitted it is likely to hike council tax charges.
The DfE and WCC have been approached.
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