Grants have been provided for children in Wilmslow and Alderley Edge and yet the above areas are excluded from using this service and have been denied transportation by Cheshire East. Many children from these areas attend feeder schools for Fallibroome Academy and will not be offered places in other high schools. Cheshire Easts failure to provide transportation is in breach of The Department of Education Home to School Travel and Transport Guidance 2014 - namely to provide sustainable travel and transport. At present by failing to provide provision to children in these areas and without any public bus services available for school drop off and pick up times, Cheshire East is expecting families to drive to Macclesfield. This is not a sustainable policy and increases the traffic and is not environmentally friendly. Further, these children deserve to be treated equally to those children living in the more affluent areas of Wilmslow and Alderley Edge and are being discriminated against. Finally, by not providing transportation, Cheshire East is indirectly discriminating on basis of gender against women - failure to provide transport means parents have to work part time to accommodate school drop off and pick up times. This sadly, tends to fall to the mother to change her working hours and tend to childcare. This is therefore impacting on a working mother's ability to secure full time work or miss job opportunities due to working hour restrictions. Cheshire East are failing the children in these areas, failing to treatment them equally, failing to support working families, indirectly discriminating on grounds of sex against working mothers and also harming the environment by failing to provide a sustainable transport system for these children. My daughter sums this up "I would like my independence and walk to a school bus stop and get on a school bus, not be picked up and dropped off in a car. It's bad for the environment, it's bad for my development and it's not fair that I can't be on a bus with my friends".
This ePetition runs from 07/06/2022 to 22/07/2022.
21 people have signed this ePetition.