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

Bit of a weird thread - I live in central London, my neighbours SEN kids still get a minibus to school. YANBU to point out that 1) due to austerity local councils are in the shit financially and 2) that the marketisation of SEN kids' services hasn't worked. But the whole rural angle you've chosen is odd.

It’s the cost of social care and homelessness that are killing councils not Send Taxis.

It's just another SEN kids are bankrupting local authorities thread. How low can you go?

The OP has a point. It has become hugely expensive to transport DCs to specialist schools.

On retirement we moved back to the village where I was raised. When I lived here as a child there were 5 specialist schools within 5 miles. 2 for DCs with physical needs (and also rehab for injured DCs) equipped with physio equipment and medical staff. The 3 other schools were for DCs with learning difficulties or behavioural issues. Transport was by mini bus or ordinary buses.

None of these schools exist now. The nearest school for those with learning difficulties is more than 10 miles away. A school specialising in autism is 20 miles away and there is no provision for those with physical disabilities anywhere near. DCs have been forced into mainstream by the closure of good schools dedicated to their needs.

This is why transport is such "a drain". We need more specialised schools and to not force mainstream on those who find it too difficult. The cost of 1 to 1s in mainstream is also high, if they can be found.

They closed purpose built excellent schools with dedicated staff and forced DCs into mainstream. Those schools that do still exist are so difficult to get into that parents just give up.

It's a bloody disgrace.

It's just another SEN kids are bankrupting local authorities thread. How low can you go?
There's been so many of them, I'm starting to wonder if there's some water testing to see if the general population can be whipped into a frenzy of blaming parents of children who have SEND for collapsing public services.

Too many people miss the bloody obvious that if you slash and slash and cut and cut then the most vulnerable in society end up more vulnerable and average people often don't pay attention until they're affected.

Disabled children are a very easy target. Have we moved off the immigrants for now or is it them too?
Pensioners cost more than disabled kids if we're playing tit for tat. What do you suggest OP, a cull? We could do it in the streets, entertain all the high earners at the same time, what do you think?

I live in a city. I know several Sen children who's nearest Sen school that meets need /has space is 20-30 mikes away requiring taxis.

Being in a city means nothing just more kids fighting for spaces.

I don’t think people understand just how shocking bad tgings are in a bankrupt council. Yes, there will still be a bus to school (because they are obliged to), but that bus will pick up 30+ kids. have fun bringing your reception child to the bus stip at 7:30 am, and collecting at 5:30.
Education for any child that isn’t absolutely beyond mainstream (i.e. severe disabilities) is nonexistent. They get parked somewhere in a school, but they don’t get an education. and so on . we pay private for our son who would get absolutely no education at a state school due to his SENDs (will likely get decent A levels at private…)

When my DS was at his mainstream (nearest) secondary school, 70% of children were bussed to school on school transport paid for by the LA. The remaining 30% lived within walking distance in the large village that the school was based in. It's not just children with SN who require school transport. But it's ridiculous to say people in villages shouldn't have children/people with children shouldn't move to villages. Farmers/ agricultural workers need to live in rural areas and very often have children!

I'm sorry you're facing this very challenging situation, Rorret. To be honest, though, the situation you're describing is also a pretty almighty dripfeed from the starting-point of "I was born here." (I mean, why not explain your situation more clearly from the start, if you didn't want me to make a slightly snarky response?)

People in your kind of situation obviously have little capacity for moving. My only suggestion, given that so many council budgets are at the point of collapse, is along the lines of "If those who can consider moving, do so, this will free up some more money for situations like Rorret's, who genuinely has no choice other than to send her child to school via taxi (I'm assuming we are talking about a situation where a school taxi is essential for your kids). Because the wolf is well and truly at the door for many councils and hard choices will have to be made by those who can make them."

My only suggestion, given that so many council budgets are at the point of collapse, is along the lines of "If those who can consider moving, do so, this will free up some more money for situations like Rorret's, who genuinely has no choice other than to send her child to school via taxi (I'm assuming we are talking about a situation where a school taxi is essential for your kids). Because the wolf is well and truly at the door for many councils and hard choices will have to be made by those who can make them."

Oh really? Well my only solution is STOP VOTING TORY. HTH

Re "councils are legally required to provide this service":

My experience of the UK state is that when it is legally obliged to provide a service BUT there literally. is. not. the. money to do this, what tends to happen is that the service is deliberately made almost impossible to obtain in practice. For example, piles of paperwork is required and made as fiddly and awkward to access as possible, you'll have to phone 8am on the dot for God knows how long at this place, and then this place, and then this place, the process will be gatekeepered by people who are deliberately doing their damnedest to stop you making any progress.

The financials of local government are really looking very bad. And much as I hope Labour gets in, they don't have a magic wand to wave. To be honest, I feel really sorry for the Labour party, as they are the ones who will get blamed for what we'll be seeing over the next few years, even though it will be hard to avoid.

Yes, please do stop voting Tory, because they are rubbish.

However, the situation isn't going to be much different under Labour. If you think Labour's going to unleash a lovely Tony Blair-like wave of lovely public spending, think again. They just won't have the money.

I'm actually getting quite worried about the wave of mass disillusionment and despair that's going to crash over the country once Labour is in and people start to realize that no, they don't have the capacity to just magically make these problems go away - and yes, I'm saying that as someone who will be voting for them and hopes really hard that they get in!

It doesn’t matter if you live rurally… unless by rural you mean not a city?

Sometimes the catchment for an SEN school in a county is huge!

If you shut the sure start centres, require a child to have a EHCP before they can access speech therapy or OT, close SEN nurseries, release white papers to cut SEN school places and EHCPs then this is the shit storm you invest it.

We can't choose to not birth these kids. It's not a lifestyle woke choice to be these parents. You reap as you sow. Austerity is bearing its fruit its always been this way for over ten years plus. But parents are educating themselves on the law and waking up and asking for the basic rights that all children should have.

Just as if you had a stroke tomorrow you wouldn't curl up and die to save public funding, why should our kids?

Lots of money to line the Lords pockets with PPE backhanded so it's bullshit to say we can not educate our SEN and disabled children.

My son goes to a school 37 miles away as there is no speech and language schools with therapist in county.

I'm almost thinking actually he would be better off living in supported living for life. But to avoid that future cost, it costs now.

Shame he was non verbal until 7 but no one offered him any Speech therapy until was in reception year and had the ehcp. Maybe a few years of speech therapy as a toddler might have prevented 14 years of expensive education and taxi. But it doesn't work like that. Someone got a pat on the back saving that pre school budget.

Someone is profiting from his situation now. Capitalism init.

Oh give me a break. The Tories have been doing what they always do - making the very rich even richer. At the expense of those of us on a middle income and the poor!

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Lots of parents of SEND children still rely on taxis/transport to school even if they don’t live rurally, as special schools are few and far between so you can often be living in a bigger town that doesn’t have one.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 fucking hilarious. I've brought my children up rurally. They ride, surf ( we live a stones throw from the beach) ... The countryside is reality as much as city life you absolute numpty. Congratulations though on writing the dumbest post I've seen in a loooong time 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Exactly. My daughter's first SEN school was 10 miles away before she went into residential.

For those saying their child is in a village school with class sizes of private schools, don’t be too sure those schools will be hanging around for too long. School budgets are horrendous, Primary schools are closing across the country due to falling birth rates

@user1477391263 oh, they do provide the service. but the quality is so bad thatvits unusable, so parents opt out - win!
I wasn’t joking with a 7:30 schoolbus for reception children. village school (the one with 15 kids per class) was closed, busses now puck up children. they take the longest route, so 1.5 hours for 10 miles is perfectly normal. And because people are now mikes away from any school, they get the ones nobody wants.
The council is slso not obliged to get you child to any school - you don’t want the offered place in the failing school? Your good right, but you won’t get transport to another school (except the closest one, where you’ll never make it up the waiting list - due to distance you’ll be number 80 or so).

I personally also think that people who have to life rurally (farmers, small local businesses etc) should get priority for the few local school places when it comes to that….

But then comes the vicious cycle. You advice families with children not to live in rural areas. No young people and young families mean even less activities and amenities. Dying out rural areas. You also say there are problems with transport for the elderly. So no children or elderly in rural areas. What do you suggest? We crowd up even more in crowded cities? Should we rewind rural areas (not a bad idea but then young and old all in cities might not be practical). Perhaps the solution is not to chase the young and old out of rural areas with all their benefits but to vote sensibly for the next, I don't know, 100 years?