An email has been sent to the Public services Ombudsman following a decision by Bridgend School Transport (BST) to deny my son and a large number of his peers from having a free bus pass on the basis that they apparently reside in the catchment area for Pencoed Comprehensive. 

This petition has been created due to the parents challenge that Pencoed Comprehensive School is not a suitable secondary school choice for the children of the Brackla area that has been designated; and Bridgend School Transport department - Bridgend Council will not acknowledge that the new school transport policy is an unfair, unsafe and financially costly policy for children and families. 

The families that have signed this petition agree that:

1. Bridgend School Transport have not taken into consideration the unfairness of this policy, as parents whose children attended primary schools in Brackla, have not been made aware that their primary school was a natural feeder school to Pencoed Comprehensive. Also even if that is the case, the families would still be expected to pay for transport due to  'distances from home to school are measured from each child's home address to their nearest available school, using the local authorities dedicated Geographical Information System (GIS) and of available walking routes', which is a birds eye radius calculator. The policy also notes that 'some year 7 pupils may benefit from free transport at a two mile threshold, if their sibling, who attends the same school, already receives school transport at this distance'. The school transport also notes that 'the Local Authority is only requires to provide free home to school transport for secondary age school pupils, if they live more than three miles walking distance from their nearest suitable (catchment) school'.  It also has to be taken into consideration that there are children in the Brackla area, according to School transport who are not in the catchment area for Brynteg however they have a free bus pass to the school. 
2. Bridgend School Transport will not consider, that children needing to walk from Brackla to Pencoed Comprehensive School would be expected to walk under singletons bridge, which has no safe pedestrianised crossing. Using Google Maps (which BST have disregarded as a recognised route finding technique) Singleton's bridge will have to be passed (there's no other time-effective route), which historically has been the scene of many traffic accidents and has no safe path to use. In addition there is also a case that BST have allowed for some children have been granted a free bus pass from Brackla to Brynteg Comprehensive School within the 3 mile travelling distance, due to being deemed as a no safe walking route.  BST have stated that " A significant number of independent reassessments of the walked routes to school across the county borough were commissioned in 2015 and this work concluded in 2019.  The assessments were carried out on routes where pupils attend their catchment school" and we challenge that this assessment fails as a possible safe walking route. 
3. The financial cost implications of Bridgend School Transport policy are unacceptable, as each family will have to pay £12.00 per week, per child. I have calculated that there are 38 weeks of school per annum, which will cost the average parent £487.50 in school travel per child per year.  

We the parents and community members demand that this policy is altered and that our children will be expected to attend Brynteg Comprehensive school as the most suitable Secondary School in the Area and that they are responsible to transport our children safely and for free. We feel that we are being unfairly discriminated against and that the Bridgend council has a duty to prioritise the safety, wellbeing and education of the children and families that they are meant to serve.