WEST Oxfordshire schools could lose teachers or be forced to close if the county council decides to start charging for bus travel, it has been claimed.

The council is consulting on a proposal to scrap free bus travel for pupils who attend a school more than three miles away that is not the closest to their home.

It is also considering raising the concessionary bus charges to £541.20 per year – or £180.40 per two terms – for students who live more than three miles from their school who do not qualify for free school transport. The current charge is £164.00 per two terms.

The council said it currently provides free bus travel “above and beyond” statutory requirements.

Burford School headteacher Kathy Haig said: “For us this could be devastating.”

She said the changes could lead to the school – which takes about 200 new pupils a year – see its intake slump to about 50 children.

Mrs Haig added: “It would be fairly significant in terms of being able to deliver the curriculum, because we would have to shrink the staff.

“Obviously, I would hope that would not be the case [the school closing], but if you get numbers below 100, it’s hard to know if it would be or not. You start to get into the danger margins as to whether the school is viable.”

At The Marlborough School in Woodstock, headteacher Julie Fenn said: “I would say we could possibly go down a form – about 30 children.

“It has implications for staffing – we would possibly need to lose staff – and it means you do not have the income generated to do all the things you want to do.”

The school’s annual intake is currently 180 pupils.

Mother-of-two Jane van Velsen, 48, of Black Bourton, near Carter-ton, sends her sons Max and Alex Theurer, who are 16 and 14, to Burford School. She said: “My biggest concern is that they are forcing parents to send children to a certain school, which is not always the right thing for your children.”

At present, if a child is aged eight or older and lives more than three miles from their catchment school they are entitled to free bus transport, regardless of whether it is the closest school to their home. A family can live in the catchment area for more than one school. The three-mile distance is measured by the shortest route the child could walk with “reasonable safety” and can include footpaths and roads.

But County Hall is also planning to reassess the routes to school that it currently designates as “unsafe walking routes” by 2015.

If approved, the charges will be brought in from September next year but will not affect children who already get free transport.

Those aged 11 to 16, whose parents receive the maximum Working Tax Credit, or who are eligible for free school meals, will continue to receive free travel to any of the three schools nearest to their home, within a radius of two to six miles.

The council which is spending about £14m providing school transport in the current school year, said the change could save £340,000 a year. Spokesman Paul Smith said: “We currently provide free school transport above and beyond the statutory national level.

“Reducing our provision would put us in line with the policy adopted by neighbouring authorities.”

Details of the consultation, which runs until July 3, and how to comment, are at oxfordshire.gov.uk/ cms/public-site/consultation