Meera contacted our Legal Rights Service for help to get school transport for her 5 year old son, Rajesh.
Rajesh is being assessed for autism and has significant developmental delay. He also has profound hearing loss, poor vision and balance problems. Meera and Rajesh live just over a mile away from his school.
It wasn’t safe for Meera to walk Rajesh to school. He walks slowly, he’s unsteady on his feet and gets very easily distracted. If he sees something he likes, he will try and run across the road to get to it. Because of his disabilities, he often gets distressed and has meltdowns on the journey to school. During a meltdown he can smash gates and garden objects, he can bite, spit, scratch and hit Meera and he sometimes falls down and refuses to move. He’s unable to understand any risks to his safety.
Meera also has her own health problems – she suffers from chest pain, a shoulder injury and she’s sleep deprived from looking after Rajesh during the night. When she felt unwell, she had to arrange a taxi to take Rajesh to school, but she couldn’t afford to do this all the time. Meera was a single parent and didn’t have any family or friends nearby who could help.
It was stressful and exhausting for Meera to try and keep Rajesh safe on the walk to school, in all weathers. They had to walk along a very busy route, including crossing a dual carriageway. It took at least an hour and sometimes up to 2 hours to walk Rajesh to school.
The council had refused her school transport application and rejected her first appeal. They told her that walking Rajesh to school was ‘challenging’ but ‘manageable’ and that Rajesh was physically capable of walking, provided his behaviour was ‘effectively managed’. They didn’t explain how Meera was expected to do this.
We helped Meera by writing a second appeal letter, which explained that the council hadn’t followed the law because it hadn’t properly assessed Rajesh’s individual needs, the risks of the journey or the impact on his ability to arrive at school ready to learn. The council had also failed to think about Meera’s ability to keep him safe and the risks to her safety. We argued that it wasn’t reasonable to expect Rajesh to consistently ‘manage’ behaviour that formed part of his disability, for journeys of 1-2 hours twice a day, every school day, given his age.
The second appeal was successful and the council agreed to provide transport. The council accepted that walking to school was ‘posing significant safety risks’ to Meera and Rajesh and that it wasn’t feasible for Meera to continue to manage this without support.
Meera was delighted with the outcome: “I would like to express my gratitude for your support! [Rajesh’s] transportation [has been] granted and he will be taken from Monday. It’s a huge relief for me. Thank you for all your support.”
Resources for you
Find out more about our Legal Rights Service here.
We publish a series of guides and factsheets to help families with common problems they may be facing. We offer comprehensive, up-to-date advice and research-driven strategies to help you deal with a wide range of issues.
