The withdrawal of a school bus will make it harder for Harris Academy pupils to get home, a councillor has warned.
The 16 service operated by Stagecoach picks up pupils at 3.50pm and takes them west along Perth Road and on out of the city to villages in the eastern part of the Carse of Gowrie.
However, Perth and Kinross Council has decided to end its support for the service.
Dundee councillor Fraser Macpherson is worried how this will affect pupils in his West End ward. He said he understood the council had acted because only one pupil who uses the bus qualifies for free travel due to the distance from home to school.
”However, the bus is used by many fare-paying pupils in both the Perth and Kinross Council part of the Harris Academy catchment area and in the area of Perth Road west of Harris Academy within the Dundee boundary,” he said.
”The particular concern is for the youngest secondary pupils in S1 and S2, where parents are not comfortable with the long walk these younger pupils will have to take home given the withdrawal of this school bus, particularly in the bad weather over winter.
”If pupils wait for the next service bus, they would be standing waiting for a bus until 4.16pm over half an hour after the school day ends.”
Mr Macpherson has asked Dundee City Council transport officials to open a dialogue with their counterparts in Perth and Kinross Council to see if anything can be done ahead of the new term starting in August.
A spokesman for Perth and Kinross Council said: ”The council’s public transport unit has recently retendered local bus services and school buses throughout Perth and Kinross.
“In terms of school transport provision, the focus of this work has been to ensure that the needs of pupils who are entitled to free home to school transport are addressed, whilst at the same time achieving a network of transport routes that makes best use of the available funding.”