Hundreds of students are barred from school buses

Hundreds of A-level students in Staffordshire will be excluded from a council-run school transport scheme, under cost-cutting plans revealed today.

Staffordshire County Council is withdrawing travel for all students except those from "low-income" families and disabled teenagers.

The controversial move – which has been overwhelmingly opposed in a consultation – is expected to save £670,000 over two years.

In total 650 students who use the service will have to make new arrangements.

Bosses say the introduction of a £1 bus fare for students through the council-run Your Staffordshire Card initiative has seen demand for the subsidised council travel scheme drop off. Numbers using the service fell from 2,900 a year ago to 1,300.

Students paid £430 for the council travel scheme in 2011/12 while taking the bus to and from lessons would have cost £380.

A report due to be considered by members of the council's cabinet later this month recommends that schools and colleges should step in to fill the void.

And council leader Philip Atkins today vowed to help the "small number" of students who would be left facing difficult journeys.

"We are looking at those anomalies that do fall through the net," he said.

"The Your Staffordshire Card has been an amazing success and it is a question of gently nudging those who haven't thought about it in that direction."

Responses to a two-month consultation on the plans were "overwhelmingly negative", with just one of 51 endorsing the changes, the report adds. Parents of teenagers affected said public transport was "insufficient or unavailable".

They claimed their children could be forced to abandon further education and said the "assertion" that colleges could meet the cost of transport provision was "a falsehood".