The MEN is calling on Andy Burnham to help ‘forgotten’ families. And the mayor now says he’s ‘sympathetic’
Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
Andy Burnham has given the strongest hint yet he will introduce a bus pass for ‘forgotten’ children following a Manchester Evening News campaign.
The MEN is calling on the mayor to bring in a bus pass for homeless children who are moved more than 30 minutes’ walk from school, because thousands have fallen through a loophole.
Often, homeless families are placed in temporary accommodation by councils several miles from their original home. Experts say it’s vital they stay in their existing school to keep a connection to their support network — but transport rules say youngsters only get free bus travel if they move more than two miles from the classroom AND there’s no ‘suitable’ school closer to their new home.
In a big, densely populated city like Greater Manchester, it’s almost impossible to move two miles and not be near a different school.
So homeless parents face a choice: Pay for buses they previously didn’t need to, or move their children away from friends and supportive staff.
The MEN believes no parent should have to make the decision, which is why we’re campaigning the mayor.
School transport campaign
Greater Manchester’s homeless parents face an impossible choice: Try and find the money to keep their children in the classroom, or move schools.
It’s a choice we believe no parent should make.
That’s why we call on Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, to implement a free bus pass for children in temporary accommodation more than a 30-minute walk from their original school.
On Monday (September 1), Andy Burnham revealed he is ‘personally sympathetic’ to ‘forgotten families’ in Greater Manchester.
Speaking at a press conference where he unveiled a raft of Bee Network changes, he said: “These are kids, who I guess will feel a bit forgotten.
“And the families will feel a bit forgotten, because obviously, to live in those circumstances when you’re ripped out of the community that you knew and having to travel a lot further to school and all of the challenge that presents financially, I bet they would feel sometimes that nobody sees that and you have done, so credit to the newspaper for that campaign.
“What I can say today is we’re going to look carefully at it to see if we can do it. Now, I say it like that just because I have to be sure that when I say something that we can find a way of financing it, and we don’t just throw too many commitments out, and we can’t sustain the changes because of the fare box situation.
The mayor said he will ‘look very closely’ at the campaign(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
“But I’m personally sympathetic to what [the MEN’s] saying. I think the vast majority of people in Greater Manchester would be as well.
“Public control of the system is all about improving the lives of people in Greater Manchester. That’s always what it’s been about: How can we make people’s lives better? How can we take pressure off people as best we can in these challenging times that we live in?”
His comments come after a quarter of Greater Manchester’s 27 MPs have publicly backed the campaign.
They include Labour’s Rebecca Long-Bailey (Salford), Christian Wakeford (Bury South), Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden), Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South), and Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme). Two Liberal Democrats have also lent their support: Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) and Tom Morrison (Cheadle).
They join three major not-for-profits, Resolve Poverty, Wood Street Mission, and Shared Health.
School transport campaign
Greater Manchester’s homeless parents face an impossible choice: Try and find the money to keep their children in the classroom, or move schools.
It’s a choice we believe no parent should make.
That’s why we call on Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, to implement a free bus pass for children in temporary accommodation more than a 30-minute walk from their original school.