You wait ages for a bus, and then none turn up
What’s that saying, you wait for ages for a bus, then two come along at once. Well this week it feels like we are still waiting for at least one bus to turn up somewhere on the horizon.
When we started the Class Divide campaign in January 2020 none of us could have predicted how important buses would become. But because we campaign about the things our families tell us they need support with, it wasn’t long before issues with transport to school started to come up.
During our first public parents' meeting, held when the pandemic was still in full swing, the bus issues were raised. Parents told us:
They were having a nightmare paying for buses for their children to get to school.
That the cost of the bus restricted their ability to choose the secondary school they felt best met the needs of their child.
That children were taking long and arduous journeys across the city to get to school by bus sometimes getting up as early as 6am and leaving at 7am to ensure they arrived on time.
Parents were also unsure about who was entitled to free travel, a real issue when all secondary schools are over three miles from the area with no safe walkable or cyclable routes.
They wanted us to add this to the issues we campaigned for because it was so important to them.
We obliged. First by submitting a petition to Brighton and Hove City Council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee (ETS) where we were successful in getting a trial of a much-needed after-school club bus from Longhill School. We also asked for free travel to school for children from East Brighton but were told by councillors’ that they couldn’t give free travel to children from just one part of the city.
We followed this up with a deputation asking for free travel for all children across the whole city, as we couldn’t get it for just those in East Brighton.
We were told this was an ‘aspiration’ and was reflected in an application for funding that had been submitted to the Department for Transport. In the meantime, a report on the impact of travel on children in Whitehawk, Manor Farm and Bristol Estate was agreed.
As all this was happening more and more people were coming to us with reports about buses.
Residents told us that kids in school uniforms were being refused travel if they didn’t have enough money on travel keys.
Children as young as 11 have been left at remote bus stops with no way to get home.
Applications for free school travel were being refused despite being previously awarded because of the failure to apply the existing travel policy. This left parents confused and needing to pay costs they could not afford.
Children could not access after-school club provisions because travel times already made the school day really long, squeezing vital time for homework and friends.
And the long journeys children were making continued.
We were excited to learn that the bid for additional government funding was successful but worried when we attended meetings that there was little about what would meaningfully change this situation for our children and families.
This week a report was presented at ETS (Environment, Travel and Sustainability Committee). Its important to note that all ideas contained in this report are subject to approval by central government. We were pleased there was a commitment to looking to reduce bus fares for children and extending free bus travel to children accompanied by a parent. If this is approved it will make a difference to low-income families across Brighton and Hove, including our local families.
But there is still no commitment to connect our neighbourhood to schools more directly or for free travel to school for our local children.
We were less convinced by the vagueness of the plans for our neighbourhoods and disappointed that the needs of this part of the city were not addressed head-on. And there’s still no sign of the Brighton & Hove City Council report into the impact travel issues have on attendance, attainment and young people’s experiences of education. We have plenty of our own evidence from the experts that matter, the families in our community. We’ve also been speaking to other education experts, and they tell us that issues with travelling to school play a role in disrupting learning.
The communities of East Brighton are so much more than the statistics. Our families demonstrate extraordinary strengths in the face of overwhelming economic challenges as they are forced by cruel and deliberate actions of the government to live in unjustifiable levels of poverty. It is true that neighbourhoods in East Brighton are in the most 10% most deprived in England and paying for travel in a cost of living crisis is a stretch too far for many.
We wonder whether the lack of urgency on this matter reflects the fact that it's unlikely to affect the children of our local politicians or council officers. Ultimately, this means our focus on transport will not stop here.