Families between Milvale and Grogan are on a mission to get a school bus service that suits the children, parents and carers in the area better than the current one.
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Currently parents, grandparents and carers are driving up to and over an hour each day to pick up and drop children off at the Milvale bus stop in the early morning and the evenings.
“We are really pushing to have the school bus run extended to Grogran from Milvale,” Grogan parent Maryann Schiller said.
“At present myself and three other families are driving from Grogan, to Milvale morning and afternoon to meet the Milvale Bus.”
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According to the parents children are required to be at the Milvale rest stop by 7.30am in the morning, which for some is a 15 to 20 minute drive to.
When parents then need to return home and drive back in the afternoon this makes it more than an hour each day of travel, not to mention the issues with parents and carers who work in Young.
“I have been doing this for the last six years,” Mrs Schiller said.
“It has really affected my employment and work availability as I have to meet the bus at the Milvale Rest stop at 7:30am and then 4:30pm.”
The parents are asking the bus route be extended to travel the extra 10 kilometers to the Grogan area to allow children a more convenient and accessible bus stop.
The distance from Young to Milvale is about 43km, it’s a further 29km to Grogan.
“If the bus continued to Grogan it would become more accessible to other farming families,” Mrs Schiller said.
Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke has also thrown her support behind the families in the outlying communities.
“I’m aware of the Grogan and Milvale communities’ concerns regarding the bus route, and I have been discussing the issue with the Minister for Transport, the Honorable Andrew Constance MP,” Ms Cooke said.
“While I understand there may be operational reasons which would make the bus route extension more challenging than it may at first appear, I am certain that we can work together to discuss an outcome which benefits everybody.”
Having grown up in the area and still living in the area Ms Cooke is aware of how difficult it can be for farming families in the area to access the bus at it’s current stop.
“I’d love to see the bus making life more straightforward for the wonderful Grogan community,” Ms Cooke said.
If there’s no change to the current route, Mrs Schiller said “it will result in either me becoming unemployed or sending my children away for school”.