Agenda item

Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice and provided the text to Democratic Services (democraticservices.central@northyorks.gov.uk ) no later than midday on 15 September 2025, three working days before the date of the meeting. Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item. 

If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Chair who will instruct those taking a recording to cease whilst you speak.

One public statement was received before the deadline of midday on Monday, 15 September 2025.

Dr Ruth Jones made the following statement.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee members.

My name is Ruth Jones (Dr Ruth Walker). I am a GP in Selby, a mother, and the GP lead for health inequalities in this area. I work with council colleagues and schools on projects to improve children’s health, wellbeing, and attendance, and I sit in Local Care Partnerships where poor rural transport — and its impact on health — comes up constantly.

So, there is more than a little irony that I am here today, fighting the consequences of this Council’s own transport policy. We talk about prevention, tackling disadvantage, and the importance of school attendance — yet this policy is undermining those goals. Getting children safely and happily to school is prevention. Blocking it widens inequalities for already underserved rural communities — just as the Council’s own equality impact statement warned it would.

Let me share with you an example of how absurd things have become:

At Tadcaster Grammar there is a pedestrian gate, in daily use for 5 years. Yet the Council’s mapping system missed it off. For many that incorrectly makes Milthorpe School in York marginally closer - as few as 6 meters but enough for the computer to say no. Officers admit the error and promised it would be corrected when the system was next updated. Meanwhile children this year still been incorrectly denied transport.

To make matters worse, we discovered yesterday that the system was updated just last week and yet the missing gate is still missing. That means another year of children living in villages in and around Appleton Roebuck for example, are about to be wrongfully denied transport.

And this is not an isolated case of injustice. Mistakes in communication, double counting of available school places in neighbouring councils, and inaccurate route calculations are common.

Families are dragged through appeals that are slow, stacked against them, and now even restrict councillors like Cllr Warneken and Cllr Lee — who have stepped up in support— from fully representing parents in their hearings. This action undermines the principles of natural justice under which all appeals should run, and quite honestly it reeks of a council that are desperate to win at all costs.

So, I came here today to say two things. First, thank you to those councillors who have stood shoulder to shoulder with parents — we are grateful.

Second, to those who have stayed silent: please speak up. Don’t sit on your hands hoping this will blow over. It won’t. We need you to do your bit. Stand up for North Yorkshire’s children. Do your job, so parents like me can get back to doing ours.

The Tadcaster Grammar Gate injustice seems like a perfect place to start. And so, the question that I would like an answer to today — is this: 

Will this committee urgently write to the Executive Member and the Chief Executive this week to request that, in cases like this where an error has been acknowledged, any child who was wrongly denied school transport should have that decision reversed without delay?

The relevant Officers were unable to attend the meeting so David Smith, Senior Democratic Services Officer, read the following response on their behalf.

Thank you for your statement.

The council adopted its home to school travel policy in July 2024 and have ensured that the policy is legally compliant and follows the DfE statutory guidance.

This summer the council has made arrangements for eligible children to access free transport, many of these attend their nearest school and travel over the statutory walking distance. Parents of children who do not attend the nearest suitable school with places remain responsible for their travel arrangements.

The council has a mapping system used for admissions and transport purposes, this system has been used for many years and contains maps which are updated each year.  The distance to the school is measured to nearest entrance point (not always the main entrance) as defined by the Council’s system.

As part of the home to school travel appeals process this year, some parents in a small number of cases, have identified issues where schools were using entrances/gates onto their sites which were not designated as such on the routing and mapping system used by the council for admissions and transport purposes. It is acknowledged that, for various reasons, a small number of schools may have started using entrance points which have not been designated and that some schools may have stopped using identified entrance points that are recorded within the system.

Changing any identified entrance points within the mapping software is a significant step. For every parent who may benefit from a change of this kind, there could be parents who would be disadvantaged from either an admissions or home to school travel policy perspective. To ensure fairness, the Council believe it would not be appropriate to include or exclude individual entrances /gates at particular schools without fully considering changes across all school sites as part of the annual update to the mapping system.

The Council is therefore reviewing the identified entrance points with schools across this academic year to ensure the information included on the system is up to date. Any agreed changes to entrance points would be updated prior to the admissions round which opens in September 2026, affecting school places in the academic year 2027/28, and also in-year applications from September 2026. The Council have taken this approach in order to ensure equity amongst pupils.

However, after any eligibility check has been undertaken, parents are able to use the council’s appeal processes to seek a review of the decision, including if they have exceptional individual circumstances that are significant enough to depart from the policy.

Dr Ruth Jones was provided the opportunity to make a supplementary statement and the following points were raised.

·        What is the purpose of an appeals process if new information is not taken into account and errors are not addressed?

·        The speaker questioned who is scrutinising decisions, and whether that level of scrutiny is sufficient.

Members noted the issue that was raised by the public speaker.