Free travel plea by blind mother

A Cornwall MP is calling for a rethink of a council panel's decision to stop free transport for a pupil whose blind mother cannot drive her to school. Ann-Marie Storer said her daughter would have be home-schooled without free travel to her choice of school. The council said parents were responsible for all transport costs if they attend schools not designated for their home address.

MP Colin Breed, writing to the council, said individual needs should be heard.

Mrs Storer moved her six-year-old daughter Francesca from a local Callington school where she was unhappy, to St Dominic's School, three miles away from home.

Council funding that provided transport for Mrs Storer and Francesca to travel to school and back is to stop in December following a decision by Cornwall County Council's Education Transport Appeals Board. The council said it only had a duty to provide transport to children under the age of eight, if they live more than two miles from their nearest or designated school.

Having considered submissions from Mrs Storer and supporters, the Transport Appeals Panel did not consider it should agree to depart from the normal policy and pay for her choice of school.

Mrs Storer said: "It's just upsetting. I am determined that she will continue to go to St Dominic. If they refuse I would have to teach her at home."

Mr Breed, who is following her case, said: "You cannot apply an across-the-board sort of dictat. I am incensed at the way in which this matter has been dealt with. There has to be a situation in an appeals panel where you look at the individual circumstances each time. They [the panel] ought to reconsider their position and perhaps stand down."