You learn a lesson in physics at a winter protest: righteousness generates its own heat. True to form, Tuesday’s demonstration in Bradford against proposed cuts to school bus services brought a much-needed bit of warmth and colour to a windswept Centenary Square. More than that, it put a vibrant human face (actually about 200 faces) to the numbly familiar statistics of austerity.
Protest against Bradford school bus cuts
The students marched to the town hall from St Bede’s and St Joseph’s Catholic College, in Manningham, one of two affected schools, along with Bingley Grammar School. Once there, they gathered in good order to chant their message to the councillors inside, who were due to vote on motions to halt proposed cuts to school buses. (The cuts were subject to a consultation, meant to run until 18 December.)
The children got straight to the point: “What do we want?” “BUSES!” When do we want them?” “NOW!” Many of them were carrying flags representing faiths and heritages in the diverse student body – something that might be at risk if the cuts go ahead – and together they kept the momentum going for a good hour (“… WHAT? … BUSES! … WHEN? … NOW! …”), until the council meeting began.
Indeed, the only voices to be heard belonged to children, though considerable adult organisation must have gone into this, too. Most of the high-vis vests in evidence were school staff – the police kept a good-humoured distance – and someone even thought to bring a portable Tannoy, on its own little wheelbarrow.
After the demonstration, several dozen students, parents and carers, and staff went into the gallery to observe the debate – and the vote. But why are such cuts being proposed at all?
Bradford Council finances – the need for savings
The issue is this: like most local authorities in the UK, Bradford Council is on its knees, financially. According to Susan Hinchcliffe, the present council leader, who put the Labour-controlled council’s case in Tuesday’s debate, Bradford is faced with a deficit of £120mn. There isn’t enough money to cover statutory services (such as social care), interest payments on council debt, and what are called ‘discretionary’ services. Since discretionary services are the ones which the council has most say over, in a pinch they are the ones that have to go.
These services include things like housing, culture, and transport, aspects of life which from a certain perspective – and especially from ‘above’ – might be thought of as things people can sort out for themselves, without the need for government involvement. All of them have taken significant hits nationwide since 2010, but as local government finances get ever more parlous, the cuts keep coming. It’s a familiar story, now. We’re used to it. So why has this particular issue sparked such a big response in Bradford?
The answer is: school buses impact the welfare of children. That alone is enough to cause a response, particularly given that families are already paying for the service, to the tune of hundreds of pounds a year. But importantly, the children who use these buses are not in isolation: they are in large institutions (St Bede’s and St Joseph’s is, on some measures, the largest Catholic School in the UK).
The sort of network necessary for an organised response is already there and waiting, among parents and carers, teachers, and most importantly, among the children themselves. When austerity’s bony hand comes knocking there, no one has to answer the door alone.
Why school buses matter
The best way to understand the passions raised is to imagine the alternatives facing children and their families, should these services go. Children will have to walk, catch regular public transport, or be driven.
The consequences were eloquently expressed by petitioners from St Bede’s and St Joseph’s Catholic College and Bingley Grammar School, who spoke at the council meeting. Among other disturbing scenarios, we were asked to picture a child of 11 walking in the dark on a winding road with no pavement; children leaving home at 6am and returning exhausted 12 hours later thanks to patchy public buses with limited capacity; and anxious Year 7s trying to navigate multiple public buses for the first time alone, at rush hour, among adults, through the tougher parts of town.
The safeguarding concerns are obvious, but there are knock-on effects, too, not least on wellbeing and attendance. Particularly vulnerable are those children whose households have struggled to get back into the school routine since lockdown. For many of them the extra barriers might prove insurmountable.
And consequences knock further on than that. Imagine if – as they will – a significant proportion of these children’s parents and carers decide to drive them to and from school. In the debate (more of which below), Cllr Islam observed that a single bus equates to as many as 75 cars. Picture the chaos on the roads around the affected schools at dropping-off and picking-up times, hundreds of cars in gridlock, a thousand children mobbing the pavements.
Imagine the emissions, too. Bradford has recently instituted a clean air zone and used some of the millions of pounds already generated by payments and fines to fund, wait for it … a clean air schools programme. The irony of this was not lost on the protestors.
To sum all this up, school bus services benefit and protect children in significant ways. To remove them without a viable alternative threatens real harm. And there may well be money in the Bradford council budget to make it unnecessary. Is it any wonder there has been such a forceful response?
The debate on school buses in Bradford
Bradford town hall is a beautiful building. They constructed it when the city was rich from the wool trade and the saying went: ‘Leeds looks to London as Bradford looks to the world.’ There is a lot of brass and oak panelling. The wide stone stairs would support a brontosaurus. The chandeliers sparkle.
Some of that earlier gravitas seems to inhabit the chamber, even today. The procedural language – ‘So moved, Lord Mayor’ – can be touchingly arcane and the councillors seem very good at taking turns, especially if you compare them to the Westminster lot. Perhaps on this occasion they were on their best behaviour for the audience of civically minded children scrutinising them from the balconies, but it’s nicer to think they are always like that.
The petitioners from the two schools were listened to respectfully and applauded. Several of the councillors were applauded when they spoke, too. The tabled motions aimed to cancel the proposed cuts immediately, rather than wait for the decision of the ongoing consultation. The controlling Labour group favoured finishing the consultation and deciding about the cuts at the end, and wanted to amend the cut-blocking motions accordingly. The procedure was, as this may suggest, a little hard to follow.
But the speeches were clear. Those wanting to end the cuts immediately – among them a Green (Cllr Edwards), a Conservative (Cllr Sullivan) and an Independent (Cllr Islam) – made broadly the same points the parent-petitioners from the two schools did. The Labour contributors (Cllrs Hinchcliffe and Duffy) responded with the council’s dire financial situation and the importance of letting the consultation run to its natural end so that all voices can be heard.
There was a bit of party-political hectoring, but not much. Someone said Labour had failed to ‘get a grip’ of the finances. There was a bit of sympathy for that in the gallery. But equally, when the effects of a decade and a half of austerity and soaring costs were raised, heads nodded in understanding for that, too.
All in all, there was a sense that everybody pretty much meant what they said and had fair reasons for saying it, even if you disagreed. When it came to the vote, the Labour majority got their way and so the consultation will run to its end. There were no hear-hears of triumph. The victors seemed as subdued about the outcome as the vanquished.
The future for Bradford school buses
The children who hadn’t yet had to go home for their tea seemed a bit non-plussed by the contrast between protest and procedure. They weren’t alone in that. The councillors probably felt for them. They were young, too, once. But as young and less young filtered through the magnificent lobby and out into a chilly Bradford evening, spirits seemed to lift a bit. Citizens facing significant hardship had raised their voices and been heard. They had made something happen. It wasn’t quite the thing they had hoped for, but it wasn’t nothing, either.
And what seems to matter most, looking forward, is that the great majority of citizens who took action on this occasion were 11, 12 and 13 years old. They had a bit of encouragement, but my goodness, they rose to the occasion. The austerity years have been grim – and not just up north. But if Tuesday’s events in Bradford are anything to go by, it’s beginning to look as if the children won’t stand for it. Think of that as a bit of winter fuel.
Ed: Robert Maslen was previously a governor of one of the schools mentioned in this article. He is writing in a private capacity.
