Mid West mother to commute 1500km per week for her children’s education following bus service cancellation

A Mid West mother will be forced to drive 300km a day — or up to 20 hours a week — in order to take her children to and from school next year after her youngest son’s bus route was axed. Mother of three and farmer Fiona Mann is disappointed and angry at the Public Transport Authority’s decision, which will now extend her daily school run to four hours behind the wheel. Ms Mann and her family live in Eradu, east of Geraldton, with her youngest son George, 11, attending the closest school to their farm, Yuna Primary School. In a school of just nine students, George is the only one currently using the Yuna south east school bus, which led the PTA to cancel the service from next year, when he starts Year 6. Ms Mann said she was disappointed by the lack of consultation over the decision, with the service being cancelled without community input. “We put a 10-page document with all the facts and the implications and how it would affect us, and sent that through to the minister,” she said. “We got a letter from the Transport Minister’s office saying that it’s being upheld, which is pretty disappointing.” Outlined as part of the document were the implications on the community going forward. According to Ms Mann, difficulties in attracting people to the region would become harder if the bus service was cancelled, as parents may not be willing to travel to send their kids to school. She fears the route may not return if it is taken away next year. “Once we leave the bus, we won’t get it back,” she said. “We’ve given them a solution, which is to realign the buses east and west, which would add three kids with George next year, and would mean the bus route is still there in the future. “It’s a win-win situation.” A PTA spokesperson confirmed the route had been cancelled following a review. “The PTA regularly reviews its orange school bus service network to ensure it remains efficient, noting it needs to balance providing reasonable levels of student transport service while operating within budget constraints,” she said. “Given only one student is currently transported by the Yuna south east service, a decision was made to cancel the service at the end of 2024.” According to the organisation, other alternatives were considered but were not feasible as the majority of students live “mainly to the north and east of Yuna”. The north west service carries seven students, while the south east service costs $90,000 serving one student. The PTA spokesperson also said a conveyance allowance was available, which is 55.6 cents per kilometre, and that the service could be reinstated in the future if demand required it. However, Ms Mann, who wears many hats in the community as well as operating her business producing canola oil, said the time cost did not factor into the conveyance allowance. “It’s four hours of my day that I’m not in the office, I already do two hours and 100km per day to get the other boys to their bus and George to his current bus stop,” she said. “It’s an additional two hours of the day that I’m not in our business working. “It’s hard to put a value on my time.” Ms Mann called on the State Government to reconsider the decision, saying other regions would be at risk of losing their service. “I think that will just be another nail in the coffin for the people in the bush, which is pretty disappointing,” she said.