Sixth form students in North Shields donned their parents' clothes to protest over “ridiculously expensive” bus fares.
Pupils at St Thomas More Catholic Sixth Form have pleaded with bosses at Arriva to bring in cheaper ticket prices for 16 to 19-year-olds. While other bus companies Go North East and Stagecoach, as well as the Tyne and Wear Metro, set a flat £1.20 single ticket rate for 16 to 19s, sixth formers at St Thomas More have to pay a full adult price to take the Arriva-run 308, 306, and 53 routes to and from school.
Urging Arriva to match that offer, a group of youngsters made their way to the company’s Newcastle depot last week dressed in professional outfits and oversized clothes borrowed from their parents – a demonstration designed to show that they should not be forced to pay the same fares as wage-earning adults. A ticket on the 308 bus to get them from the North Shields school to the bus HQ in Jesmond cost them £2.80.
