A Yorkshire Dales agricultural show’s fancy dress competition was used by families to show their anger at a controversial council policy.
Several entries at Swaledale’s Muker Show on Wednesday reflected local residents’ opposition to North Yorkshire Council’s new rules on home-to-school transport.
One group of children were dressed as a school bus driver, a school pupil and a North Yorkshire Conservative councillor who was wearing ear protectors to highlight residents’ claims that they are not being listened to.
The children held a placard containing a poem which read:
65 years of Swaledale kids going to Richmond School
Now the council has a new plan thought up by a fool
We say “but now there’ll be a dangerous top to cross”
But will the council listen
No, they don’t give a toss
Local parent Claire Calvert, a member of the School Transport Action Group, which was formed to fight the rule change, said: “A lot of people in upper Swaledale are really concerned about this.
“They feel silenced and are using whatever means they can to highlight what’s going on.”
The change in policy means the council will only pay for transport for a child attending their catchment school if it is also their nearest school.
The new rules mean children living in parts of Swaledale and Arkengarthdale will have to pay for a bus pass if they want their child to attend Richmond School, which parents say has been used by families from the two dales for generations.
This is because the council has calculated that schools in Cumbria, County Durham and Wensleydale School, in Leyburn, are slightly nearer from some homes.
Many parents have opted against sending their children to these schools, however, claiming the journey over remote moorland roads would be dangerous in the winter.
