If you're planning to have kids, think carefully before living in a rural area

[user1477391263]

About a tenth of all councils are at risk of bankruptcy and the spiralling cost of delivering children to school by taxi has been noted as one of the factors. We've already seen more than one bankruptcy this year. The finances on this are going to get very ugly very quickly over the next few years.

I don't really have any practical advice or suggestions other than "Think carefully before buying a house in a village, and be prepared to have to move house if you child turns out to have challenges that require a special school." Rural bus services will probably mostly evaporate as well - they cost a fortune to run.

Spiralling SEND transport budgets threaten financial sustainability of England’s largest councils, report reveals - County Councils Network

Well as Birmingham and Nottingham have already gone bankrupt and neither are rural areas perhaps we should focus on a) putting people in charge who are competent and b) properly funding Local Government so it can provide statutory service.

FWIW I live in a rural village and both my DCs were born after I moved here. Both had disabilities/SN - one went to SN school 15 miles away on transport funded by the LA. It was the only SN school available in the county - 400 pupils- so a massive transport bill for the LA.
The other got free transport to mainstream secondary school because all the DCs in our village do - it's 5 miles to the nearest high schools in either direction.
But the cost of the school transport is miniscule compared to the cost of NHS costs for my DD plus the respite care and the specialist education costs which would all have cost the same even if we'd lived in the county town.

It is a hard choice for the middle England, racist fuck Brexit voters.

Do you want 'sovereignty', to punish immigrants with Rwanda etc etc, or do you want properly funded social services?

You chose. You were warned that if you tolerated this, then your children will be next.

Shurely - Think carefully before voting for a party that has cut local authority funding by 40% since coming into power?

And remember the Conservative council that said it was going to go bankrupt (was it Surrey) and Theresa May went on a special visit to them and bunged them a ton of money to shut up. It's not accidental that it will be non-Conservative councils that actually go bankrupt.

I lived in an urban area when I had a school aged child. They would still have needed transport there.

The problem OP, is that they've shut all the fucking SN schools so now SN children have to be taxied miles away from home to get to school. That's why it's costing so much in taxis.

This is such an offensive article, disgusting that they would try to blame failing councils on kids with SEN. If it's not the poor or the elderly then it's the kids with SEN.

Another thread making a subtle dig at SEN kids 🙄. Fixed the headline for you…

’13 years of austerity leaves many councils close to bankruptcy - which disproportionately impacts disabled and vulnerable kids and adults’

From which country are you preaching OP? I find your sanctimonious claptrap very offensive and we can all see it for what it is, disgraceful prejudice against vulnerable members of society. I will continue to live wherever I wish. You cannot control that. I suggest taking more of an interest in your own life in your own country than hectoring us!

Yep.
Don't know why the OP is so bothered about this, given that she actually lives in Japan.

Houses in many rural areas are expensive especially in idyllic shire villages and the question has to be asked what tax payers money should be disproportionately funneled to rural areas when in reality poor urban areas are where council money should be concentrated. Should small villages with £1M pound houses be served with subsidised public transport?

We live in a village. DH is self employed and 90% of his work comes from ours and surrounding villages. I teach at a busy, oversubscribed primary un the next village, which DD1 started at this year. ILs (childcare for DD2) live in our village. The preschool DD1 attended and that DD2 will soon attend is in our village.

Moving to a town would make our lives infinitely more inconvenient. Both DH and I grew up and were thus teenagers in villages, and would much rather our DDs have some transportation issues than be exposed to the things that our respective friends raised in towns did.

However, I do agree that local authorities are dreadfully underfunded. As a teacher (and DH an ex firefighter) in a largely rural county, the effects of this are very clear.

I'm not surprised that councils are going bankrupt. We live approx 6 miles from 2 senior schools - one is accessible by public transport, one is not.

My son is at the school accessible by public transport, but this school is 0.1 miles further than the other school.

The council will not pay for his bus pass as he is not at his 'nearest school' (our preferred choice of school for a variety of reasons, one of which was that he could use public transport to get there!). The buss pass costs £600 per year. However if he was attending the other school (nearer by just 0.1 miles), they would have paid for him to get too/from school each day by private taxi at a considerably greater expense!

Fortunately we are in the position to be able to afford to pay his bus pass, however I decided to take this situation up with the council, as I don't think it's fair that people who can't afford to pay for a bus pass basically have no choice over which school to send their child to and that (in our example) sending a child to the nearest school would cost the council significantly more money! We all know that different schools suit different children.

The council couldn't care less and had to stick to the 'rules'. I even quoted their environment/sustainable travel policies to them. Their response... "We don't 'talk' to other council departments".

While people sit back, and are content to watch the more vulnerable members of Society suffer, more concerned with the callous rhetoric of stopping the boats, under this current Government, will find out when it starts to affect them personally.

It's the owners of those million pound houses that are paying for the subsidised transport. We live semi rural, DS is 10 and has been here since he was born. 90% of his friends live locally and we car share with friends if they are going further away.

The problem with not subsidising transport is it would be the poor/uncared for kids who didn't get to school. Not middle class DS for who we will be setting a direct debit to pay his bus fare next year. Not everyone wants to live in high density housing I love our estate of about 50 individual homes and a farm at the end of the garden. Being in a town is also considerably more unhealthy.

Maybe something like the end of child benefit at 11 to pay for a school bus pass if outside of walking distance needs to come in to fund it.

How we deal with the problem of rising social care costs bankrupting council is a bigger question. We have pensions that will cover a cleaner and gardener when we age, if we need more help than that quite frankly I don't want to be here.

I was only driving through the stunning countryside past beautiful villages I live amongst yesterday thinking how wrong humanity got it to build so many big cities. It’s so wonderful to see the earth and not just concrete.

now I’m a city girl. Grew up with everything it has to offer. Love them - but the reality is they’re unhealthy, often lacking green space (and a row of trees or a grass square here and there don’t count), lack community, are less safe generally (more cars/more crime per square mile)

i now live rural/semi rural. My kids are confident and courageous. They feel support from a village (literally and figuratively) they also venture into the city regularly. They also spend lots of time in my home city. They’re also a lot more competent and able and secure than I, a city dweller, was at their age.

We have transport you know? We rural livers are able to visit a city without breaking down and crying weeweewee all the way home.

Kids here also learn how farms work - no crying because they just figured out where sausages come from at the age of ten. They deal with the elements more - where I live there’s often flooding/yearly snow/and ice which impacts travel. The community feel which died in cities decades ago means kids get the opportunity to work in the community and volunteer more. The old communicate with the young freely. They have MORE independence than their counterparts in the city.

What would your suggestion be anyway? That all children are raised in the city? Or that the whole country is concreted over because it’s more “real”? There’s nothing more or less real about where people live whether that’s city/sea/country/mountains-and if by “realities” you mean rubbish and muggings, shouldn’t we be encouraging people to see the real world as not like this anyway? Why would we want to promote city life as THE way to live? Why is it better? It isn’t. It’s just different.

@user1477391263 Might be better to demand better SEN services inc Schools Transport?

We all have a vote, why not use it to benefit our children?

There is nothing amazing about living in a city either, access to childrens educational and MH services are shit to non existent in this country, wherever you live.

The Govt recently wrote off £11billion in covid fraud and handed out, mostly to businesses, a £21 billion tax cut.

Plenty of money in the UK.

Really? Not round here, the Midlands, every village seems to be building many many houses, and the village schools are busier than ever…

We've always lived in the countryside, I can't imagine living anywhere else. Fantastic community, safe for DC to play out, lovely village schools, great support network. I can't imagine a better environment to raise children.

Im Kind of ignorant on the subject. But can someone explain why other countries (eg the USA) Use buses to drive almost every kid to school but here in the uk its a massive issue just providing buses for the small number of children who habe special needs?

The vast, VAST majority of kids are educated in mainstream these days. There are no special school places for anyone apart from children with the most complex needs imaginable.

This is a strange argument. You could equally argue that children brought up in urban areas are not being exposed to the reality of rural life! There are advantages either way, but I feel it should be the parent's choice if they wish to live rurally. When the children grow up and want to live in a city that's their choice too.

Where? Not in Derbyshire. I can think of probably 10 schools with under 100 pupils - and most are actually under 60 pupils - within a half hour drive of me. These aren't at risk of closing.

Theres pros and cons isnt there.

I was raised in a village with a tiny little school ( it's still going now ) we had less than 100 pupils and just 4 classrooms ( 2 years in each class ) My childrens school in the city has over 300 pupils and 11 classes. Its mayhem. And the SEN are not fab. I know parents from other schools whose SEN children arnt getting the support they need either.

I have 2 ND children who need support in the classroom ect and I can say that I wish I'd started raising them in a village rather than a city.

I'd happily pay for transport if we lived in a village and needed to pay for it. As it happens, most villages are tiny and in my hometown there are 4 schools all within a 20 minute walk of each other.

In the village, the nearest hospital was around a 25-30 minute drive. In the city it's a 6 minute drive.

But, the police drive past our house several times a day with the sirens blaring, we are just on the edge of an estate so they always turn them off just outside our house. The crime round here is horrific. It's not like that where I used to live, it's such a low crime rate and most crimes are theft not violence in the village. Here, people are stabbed and mugged frequently, not just adults. Teenagers too. Its horrific.

From being raised in a village and moving to a city, my own personal experience is that villages are better for children even if transport is an issue.

I've been desperately trying to move back to my village for the past year, I cant wait to get my SEN children into a small village where their needs will be met so much better and the environment is a lot better for them too.

I'd happily pay through my teeth for transport if I needed to ( and will have to to a certain extent because I dont drive

Wish I'd never moved and only did because of DV. It's awful trying to raise children in a violent city.

Sooo raise taxes?

That's a rural way of thinking! I grew up in London as a kid and went out everyday on my bike no one ever bothered me nor my children either. City kids grow up to be more street wise they have great access to medical care and schools.

I know there's an agenda being pushed on MN and social media in general at the moment about how horrid it is that those pesky SN parents are daring to demand an education and a future accessible for their kids... but there ARE issues with having a disabled child (even into adulthood) in a rural area.

Most of the support groups and organised activities and things that can be of huge benefit tend to be in the towns and cities - I work with families who provide an incredible quality of life for their children - but the result is they spend a LOT of their day transporting them between school, college, day centres and then evening activities - and it adds to the stress carers are already feeling. We've got unevenly commissioned services across the County - there are things you can't access in a rural area in the same way you can in the city patches (and I rant about this regularly to management). We're lucky in that we still have a very strong community team who will visit families in remote areas but there's a hell of a lot of talk about where budgets are going to be cut next and if the axe is dangling anywhere - it's over the community teams' heads - especially those teams where a visit from the office to the other side of their patch can be a good hour's driving (they've already cut right back on office space).

I think it's going to get a lot tougher for particularly rural families with disabled children in the next year or so - which is bloody wrong.

Although lots of our special schools ARE actually in rural areas - so that one's kind of a red herring, and special school transport logistics are an issue everywhere - mainly the stream of taxis belting it like mad away from the school gates after drop off which is like wacky races!

Happy to keep my rural thinking! Street wise? Does the fact they need to be not speak for itself?