IT IS exam time in our schools, when pupils have lots to worry about - especially those sitting tests crucial to their career prospects.

Yet is it not outrageous that thousands of East Lancashire school children now have the added concern of whether or not they will get to school at all to sit those vital exams - because their bus might not turn up?

We find a situation close to chaos.

Children are being stranded, left at stops as their bus drives by.

Single-deckers arrive when double-deckers are needed.

And fares have shot up.

Schools are being bombarded with complaints.

But at the back of all this is deregulation of bus services and the swoop on many East Lancashire services by that predatory operator Stagecoach.

It is all very well Stagecoach buying up bus services left, right and centre, but it is no good at all that they are running them down.

They bleat that they can't get the drivers.

Of course they can - if they accept their own belief about market forces determining pay.

Why should the public suffer for their methods?

It is time that the Traffic Commissioners got tough, with stiff fines for failed services.

And if that does not work, they should take route licences off them.

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