The huge headache over school transport in Lanarkshire may not be resolved until early next week according to one Wishaw councillor.
Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), who’s responsible for organising both North and South Lanarkshire council’s school transport contracts, told both councils on Tuesday that they have not been able to “organise buses” on a number of routes.
This affected a large number of schools across the region on Wednesday, which has continued into today (Thursday) - and looks set to bleed into next week too.
Wishaw SNP councillor Jim Hume told Lanarkshire Live : “It’s been very last minute as the council was only notified by SPT on Tuesday night.
“Parents can’t take their kids to school every day. Some parents can take to their kids to school and go into work later, but they can’t pick them up.
“The council has been told it could be the end of the week or early into next week before the situation is resolved.”
South Lanarkshire Council said last night that they had "made progress" on securing transport for some routes, however, a small number of contracts remain unfulfilled.
A spokesman for the local authority told us : "Parents are asked to consider alternative arrangements in the short term and to continue to check for email communication should further transport contracts be secured."
Tory Wishaw councillor Bob Burgess also told of kids being stranded at a bus stop in Netherton Street which was supposed to be going to Clyde Valley High.
In Ravenscraig, parents were forced to drive their kids to school for the first day of term due to buses being called off to take pupils to Dalziel High.
Labour’s Motherwell South East and Ravenscraig councillor Kenneth Duffy said: “Parents were only getting a message between half past six and 7pm last night. That’s not good enough.
“Parents have enough on their plate in the morning never mind having to drive their children to school because the bus isn’t available.”
In Shotts, the lack of buses saw parents dropping their kids off at Calderhead High while those primary pupils travelling from Shotts to St Aidan’s Primary in Wishaw were affected.
Fortissat Labour councillor Martin McCulloch called for a quick solution to mitigate "the knock-on effect for parents in the interim".
Airdrie and Shotts SNP MP Anum Qaisar added: “The decision came as a deeply unwelcomed surprise - just hours before the new school term was set to start and has caused immediate disruption to pupils and families across the Airdrie and Shotts constituency.
“I appreciate that there must be conversations and dialogue with SPT as to how we got in this situation, but the current priority must be for young people to access school.”
A NLC council spokesman said: “It is wholly unacceptable that SPT, who are responsible for organising the school’s bus contacts, informed us just hours before the return of schools that they had unable to organise buses on some routes.
“While SPT has apologised, the most important thing for parents and young people is that transport is available as quickly as possible.
“We are working with SPT to resolve this and we will continue to update parents via text message, email and on the council website.”
A spokeswoman for SPT said the blame for continued issues lied with bus operators who "declined a number of approved and awarded contracts" at short notice.
She added: “We apologise to all parents, pupils and schools affected.
"Due to the short notice given by operators, we have not been able to put in place alternative arrangements.
“Our schools’ team is working hard to find transport on a temporary emergency basis for pupils affected.”
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