MID Scotland and Fife MSP Alex Rowley has weighed in on the ongoing school bus shortage affecting Queen Anne High School pupils.

It was announced in June that pupils from Crossford, Kingseat and Townhill would face a 40 minute wait to get home from school as a result of a lack of buses available to accommodate earlier finishes to the school day.

The Scottish Labour deputy leader sent an email to Steve Grimmond, Fife Council Chief Executive, expressing his disappointment at no solution being found for the issue which was first brought to his attention in July.

The email from Mr Rowley states: "At the time of raising this issue and getting the response, I did think that it was a teething problem being able to put the transport in place and that as the letter stated the issue would be addressed in due course i.e., a matter of weeks.

I was therefore very surprised and disappointed to be contacted by parents earlier this week to say that the matter has still not been addressed and therefore you still have not put in place ‘effective transportation and supervision’ arrangements for these pupils.

I am afraid I do think this is acceptable and I am therefore asking you to take direct responsibility for ensuring that Fife Council takes whatever steps necessary to stop the unfair and unacceptable discrimination against pupils from Kingseat, Townhill and Crossford."

A supervised study space has been provided for the 86 pupils affected by the bus shortage, but Mr Rowley feels that the pupils are being discriminated against.

He continued: "To be clear, to have the pupils of these communities being forced to do an extra 40 minutes each day that no other pupils from any other community is expected to do is in my view to discriminate against them and this is not acceptable.

I do not think it is unreasonable to expect Fife Council to treat these pupils in the same way as all other pupils in Fife and it is not unreasonable to have expected Fife Council to have resolved this matter given you have had more than three months to do so."

Derek Brown, head of education at Fife Council, stressed the council were working to provide buses for those still affected by the new school finishing hours.

He said: "For Queen Anne High School, the new arrangements are in place for August for almost all of the bus routes. It has not been possible to put all of the new arrangements in place and we will continue to work closely with transportation companies to consider ways to amend the few specific bus routes that have not yet been adjusted."