I WANTED to share our dismay regarding a crazy, non-communicated change that has been made to the public bus service for schoolchildren from Needingworth to the Ivo.

The bus route to and from Needingworth, which serves Ivo pupils, has been stopped.

You would have imagined that parents or the school would have been consulted on such a major decision but incredibly we were not and, from what we understand, the first the school knew about it was when pupils reported that the bus had not turned up to take them home.

I fully appreciate that we should encourage our children to be healthy and walk or cycle to school.

However, this means that in winter 11-year-olds are required to walk 2.2 miles along a busy bypass, crossing two busy roundabouts – potentially in the dark – clearly our children’s welfare was not top of the agenda.

We have tried to find out who authorises these bus routes, as surely someone should have consulted or flagged the issue – or arranged an alternative form of transport – but we are just being passed from pillar to post.

Does a parent have to give up work to take their children to school?

I don’t think it is environmentally friendly for 20 cars to go to the Ivo, rather than one bus, adding to an already clogged up road system.

I really don’t understand. We want to encourage people to use public transport, we spend millions on a guided bus and, I note in our local villager magazine, we have �1.9million funding for public transport. And yet someone thinks it is perfectly acceptable to cancel a bus used not only by schoolchildren but also commuters.

If you want to go to St Ives from our village now, you can go at 6.32am and 7.32am but the next one is 9.38am.

So, if you work in St Ives and start at 9am, it’s not very convenient.

HAYLEY BUTLER

Willow Green

Needingworth