A GOVERNOR at Tarporley High School says a decision he made to cut a school bus for Winsford pupils was not an easy one to make.

Youngsters from the town who travelled on subsidised transport to Tarporley High found themselves stranded earlier this year when Cheshire County Council opted to axe the school bus in an attempt to save around £13,000 a year.

But Andrew Needham, the council's executive member for the environment and a Tarporley school governor, told the Vale Royal transport liaison group that the bus had not been singled out and that other 'out of zone' pupils in the county were in the same situation.

Clr Needham said: "This has not been an easy decision for me to make. Some of the parents have said to me that as a governor of Tarporley High School I should have defended the bus, but I could not argue a special case for Tarporley.

"It's parental preference where parents send their children but I am afraid if parents want to exercise that preference they have to make their own arrangements.

"All over Cheshire we have examples of this. The parents have been able to get good deals and do a bus on their own basis."

However, the withdrawal of the service was criticised by John Bennion, chairman of the Cheshire Bus Users' Association.

He said: "You cannot just say to a child 'you have the bus this week but you don't have it next week'.

"This is up to Cheshire County Council and they should honour that. If the children have already been accepted on to that bus you cannot just withdraw it."

But Clr Needham agreed at the meeting to a face-to-face debate in the next few weeks with angry Winsford parents of children at the school.

rfraser@guardiangrp.co.uk