Good news on Northamptonshire's school transport as County Council pull out all the stops over social distancing

Angel Square staff have pulled out all the stops to make sure social distancing will be maintained on all Northamptonshire's school buses.

Many of the county's schools will have all children back today (Monday) for the first time since March with year groups kept in separate bubbles in a bid to limit the possibility of Covid-19 transmission.

The County Council planned to follow the same principals on its buses but admitted on Wednesday that it did not have enough vehicles to cover 43 routes to six schools — Moulton, Campion, Sponne, Wollaston, Corby Business Academy, Prince William School in Oundle and Guilsborough Academy.

Staff worked feverishly to source extra buses and cabinet member in charge of school transport, Cllr Jason Smithers, told Friday's weekly Covid-19 that the situation resolved.

Cllr Smithers said: "The team have worked incredibly hard and risen to the challenge so students will be able to get their bus and maintain social distancing, which meets this council's ambtion."

Extra vehicles have been contracted to provide more capacity and some schools have arranged to tweak start times so that buses can make two journeys for different year groups.

A statement on the northamptonshire.gov website last night confirmed: "We have now sourced sufficient vehicles and contracts to allow for the social distancing as per our transport planning principles to be implemented on all routes.

"We have achieved the additional capacity by sourcing larger vehicles, sourcing additional vehicles and as a last resort agreeing with schools to carry out two runs along the same route with the same vehicle.

"In the case of routes where we are using double runs to achieve our aimed social distancing we will publish revised timetables below that will detail the school, the route number, the pickup locations and the time for pickup by year group.

"We would ask parents to ensure that students do not arrive at the pickup point more than 10 minutes before the bus is due to depart – this will keep the students on the different runs segregated."

County Council leader Ian Morris said it has been a "Herculean task" to get the school transport network sorted despite the Government telling Local Education Authorities of the need to provide extra capacity back in June.

Parents who prefer to drive children to school can claim 45p per mile to cover the cost of journeys but will need to return their bus pass.