Agenda item

Ward Councillors are interested in hearing the views of residents for items to discuss at future meetings.

The Chair introduced this item. He commented that the ward meeting was often too focussed on highways issues and he and his Councillor colleagues were keen to hear ideas from residents about what they may want to discuss at these meetings. It was planned to arrange dates of meetings and venues so that better publicity of the meetings could be undertaken and encourage more people to attend.

A number of residents raised deep concerns about a current issue that they were facing in relation to funding of transport to schools, in particular, faith schools. A number of comments were raised as follows:

-       Parents had only been told of this decision very recently – far beyond when choices about schools had been made.

-       The official decision had been taken in April, yet parents had only been informed now.

-       This decision could leave the parents of two children facing a cost of hundreds of pounds a year – this may mean children having to move school.

-       There were particular concerns about a bus service that was provided by the County Council, whether this service would still be available? Or what route it would be taking? Phone calls to both the City or County Councils hadn’t been able to clarify the situation.

-       There was an acceptance that cuts may need to be made, but this sort of change should have been phased in to lessen the impact.

-       It was generally felt that the timing and the quality of information around these decisions had been poor.

Councillor Moore felt that good points had been made, but noted that Leicester was generally a poor City and had to made lots of difficult cuts. She felt that answers should be provided about why it took so long for this information to be raised with parents and what was being done to prevent similar happening again. She also noted that schools had funds and negotiations were on-going to see if they could fund these services.

Councillor Grant undertook to raise concerns with the City Mayor and Councillor Dempster, the Assistant City Mayor for Children, Young People and Schools. He would ask them (or if not them, then relevant officers) to attend a parents’ evening at St. Paul’s School on the Thursday after this meeting to respond to parents concerns. He also noted that a recent decision on funding cuts for post-16 home to school transport had been amended to a phased process.

On the wider issue of items for future meetings, the Chair commented that it was the intention to have a varied range of items on the agenda for future meetings, possibly including a discussion on developing a policy for road closures for street parties and feedback on projects which the Community Meeting had funded.

The Chair also commented that he welcomed ideas from residents for items for future meetings.