THE GOVERNMENT has been told the rules which deny children a free bus ride to school should be ripped up.

The rules, which date back to the 1944 Education Act, state that children under eight are only guaranteed free bus travel if they live more than two miles from their nearest school.

Pupils over the age of eight must live more than three miles away before the local education authority is required to lay on transport.

In January, we reported on nine-year-old Louise Taylor, who was forced to change schools after her family moved home.

The former Holy Rood Junior pupil moved from Rycote Close in Grange Park to Langstone Way in Westlea and council officials said she lived too close to qualify for a free bus to the Upham Road school.

Her mother, Rachel Battershell, even offered to pay for her daughter to use the bus, but she was told that was not allowed and Louise had to attend Oliver Tomkins Junior School instead.

Mrs Battershell was unable to drive her daughter to school as she starts work as a nurse in Newbury at 8am.

The Commons environment select committee has condemned the rules on free bus travel as outdated.

A report said: "It is often unsafe for children to walk two or three miles to schools, even if accompanied, mainly because of heavier traffic than could have been imagined. The family of a child who lives 3.1 miles away from a school may get free transport, but a child whose family lives 2.9 miles away will receive nothing.

"A new system should be based on an assessment of safety issues, and the real alternatives to walking, and not just crudely based on distance from school."

The committee's report will be studied by ministers at the departments for education and transport.

But Coun Garry Perkins (Con, Shaw and Nine Elms), the council's lead member for education, warned that if more pupils were granted free bus travel it would put extra pressure on the already stretched education budget.

He said: "Up until a couple of years ago bus travel was costing the council £2m a year. Fortunately the way Swindon is designed most pupils live within two or three miles of their school."

Louise is not the only pupil to have been hit by the arcane laws. Katie Walters, 15, from Westlea, had her bus pass to Bradon Forest School in Purton withdrawn last Sep-tember because of Wiltshire County Council cuts.