Ashleigh Huxley just after her skateboarding accident last summer. 04/11/04AFTER almost losing her life in a skateboarding accident and then rescuing her little brother from a house fire, Ashleigh Huxley has had an eventful year.

But now the brave ten-year-old faces a new challenge - getting to school, after the council stopped her free transport, expecting her to walk more than 2.5 miles twice a day.

Since she sufficiently recovered from her horrific leg injuries to return to St Osmund's school in Salisbury, Ashleigh has been making the journey from her home in Bemerton Heath to Exeter Street in a taxi provided by Wiltshire county council. But the council has now withdrawn the free transport, saying Ashleigh must travel to school in the "normal manner".

"It's just ridiculous," said her mother, Jody.

"Our normal manner was to walk there and back.

"But now Ashleigh can't walk more than 400m without having a rest.

"It would probably take her 45 minutes just to get to the bus stop. We would have to leave hours before the school day starts if she was ever going to walk all that way.

"I'm also worried about the psychological effect it could have on her, because the scars on her legs do make her a target for comments."

Ashleigh hit the headlines last summer, when she miraculously survived a terrible accident after her skateboard collided with a van.

Doctors at Salisbury district hospital used revolutionary techniques to rebuild her leg during 14 painful operations.

Just weeks after she learned to walk again, Ashleigh saved her four-year-old brother from a fire at their home on New Year's Eve.

She has also campaigned for more road safety measures, and her inspirational bravery won her an award in the recent Salisbury Journal People Awards.

Because Ashleigh lives just few hundred metres below the three-mile cut-off point that would entitle her to free transport, the decision means her parents would have to pay for her daily taxi rides.

"We can't afford that, so it has left us in a very difficult position," said Mrs Huxley.

"She needs the free taxi to get to school. We just hope the council will see sense."

A spokesman for Wiltshire county council said: " In special cases, such as this, the decision to provide free school transport depends entirely on the medical advice we are given.

"We provided free transport for Ashleigh following medical advice that this should be done, but the latest advice is that it is no longer needed.

"At present, there is no medical advice to suggest that Ashleigh continues to need free transport to school.

"Obviously, if medical advice was given to the contrary, we would have to consider it."