Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's statutory guidance for local authorities on Travel to school for children of compulsory school age, what criteria her Department uses to determine whether a walking route is safe for the purposes of access to free school travel.

The Department’s school travel policy aims to make sure no pupil is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport. Local Authorities must arrange free home to school travel for pupils of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school and live more than the statutory walking distance from it. The statutory walking distance is two miles for pupils aged under eight and three miles for those aged eight or over.

The Department does not have any plans to amend the statutory walking distance, but pupils will also be eligible for free travel if they live within the statutory walking distance and would not be able to walk to school because of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem, or because the nature of the route means it would be unsafe for them to do so. In addition, there are extended rights to free home to school travel for pupils who are eligible for free school meals or who live with a parent that claims the maximum amount of working tax credit. Pupils aged eight or over, but under eleven, may have free travel to their nearest school if it is more than two miles from their home. Pupils aged eleven to sixteen may have free travel to one of their three nearest schools, provided it is between two and six miles from their home, or to a school that their parents have chosen on the grounds of their religion or belief that is between two and fifteen miles from their home.

Local Authorities are responsible for assessing route safety to determine whether a pupil is eligible for free home to school travel. Local knowledge is likely to be important and the Department does not have a role in these decisions. The Department’s guidance explains that Local Authorities should consider a range of risks such as canals, rivers, ditches, speed of traffic and fields of vision for the pedestrian and motorist.