Parents and children in Warwickshire are being left in the dark about school bus travel just days before the new term starts.

In the past few days, Warwickshire County Council’s school transport team has told parents there is no timescale or deadline for their vacant bus seat applications to be processed and that there is no guarantee of a space being available for their children anyway.

This is despite those parents having applied before the June 30 deadline.

Claire Shepherd, who lives in Whitnash, has been waiting weeks to find out if her son – who starts Year 7 at Myton School tomorrow (Thursday September 3) – has a seat on a bus to take him to school and back.

She said: “It’s not particularly customer friendly.

"It’s a real issue, especially for parents who have to get their children to and from different schools.

"It’s unbelievable they don’t have a more sophisticated way of trying to gauge the level of demand.

“The communication is appalling and in the meantime we're rallying around with other parents who are affected to try to organise lifts."

Posting on the Mum Knows Best Warwickshire Facebook group, Claire has asked other parents if they are facing the same issues and several living in various parts of the county including Southam, Stratford and Wellesbourne have responded to say they are.

The response Claire has had from the county council says: “At present, there is no timescale or deadline for processing these applications.

"The school transport team is currently working through Category 2 applications and your application will be reviewed once it is reached in the queue.

"Once this happens, the team will contact you directly with an update.

"As there is no guarantee that a transport space becomes available, we always recommend that parents/carers have alternative transport arrangements in place while awaiting their application.

It adds: "Unfortunately, we are unable to provide any further information at this stage as we must wait for your application to be processed by the relevant team.

"Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

In response, Warwickshire County Council has said: “The council must ensure that we have sufficient capacity within the home to school bus network to transport all those eligible for transport.

"Applications for transport have been received well into August, and so we were unable to assess capacity until very recently.

"Once excess capacity is identified, we first prioritise those who have accessed the paid seats previously, and then open up to new customers if space allows.

"With regards to the specific case raised with regards to Whitnash pupils accessing Myton School, we're pleased to say that we identified sufficient capacity for all paid seat applicants (repeat and new), and all parents were notified of this yesterday.”