PUPILS who live outside the designated transport catchment area of a school will not be guaranteed a place on a school bus under plans by Wiltshire County Council.

The council wants to adopt the policy as it is experiencing pressure on school buses taking students to St Laurence School, Bradford on Avon.

An increasing number of pupils living in Melksham, which is outside St Laurence's catchment area, are using school buses.

The number of pupils exceeded the number of seats available and the county council has provided, on a temporary basis, an additional bus.

George Batten, the county council's director of environmental services, said this is a situation which cannot continue and wants to bring in a policy that could result in out of catchment area students not being guaranteed a seat on a school bus.

He said there were other schools in the county at which a similar situation is at risk of developing.

In a report to the county council's cabinet to be discussed tomorrow Mr Batten says: "The need to provide an extra vehicle means that at the moment the county council is subsidising the travel costs of children who live outside the St Laurence School catchment area, a situation that cannot be allowed to continue under the current policy."

Mr Batten is proposing that in the first instance where a bus becomes full with students to try and find a bigger vehicle or alter the route or size of other buses, provided this does not affect those routes.

However, if this cannot be done then pupils from outside the catchment area will be told there is no guarantee that they will get a seat.

Mr Batten said: "In the event that there are insufficient spare seats available for all fare paying students wishing to travel, give priority to students already travelling on the bus and in particular students who have already embarked on their GCSE courses. Only allow new "out of catchment" students to purchase bus passes when and if it has been possible to ascertain that sufficient spare seats are likely to be available for a significant length of time, and on the strict understanding that transport may not always be available."