PARENTS could face a bill of almost £800-a-year to send their child to a faith school after plans were announced to scrap bus subsidies.

A consultation has been launched by Lancashire County Council into phasing out its denominational home-to-school transport.

It means bills could rise by around £200 for parents across East Lancashire who choose to send their child to the nearest faith school but live closer to an available non-faith school.

The council currently spends more than £5million on providing mainstream home-to-school transport with more than £400,000 spent on subsidising it for pupils who attend their nearest faith school rather than non-faith school.

Currently parents pay £540 per child although this will rise to £575 in September. If the subsidy is phased out by September 2018 as is proposed, parents could pay around £800 per child.

Lancashire is one of the last councils in the country to subsidise denominational school transport.

County Cllr Susie Charles, cabinet member for children, young people and schools, said: “The council faces a challenging financial situation which means that we need to consult on a number of extremely difficult decisions on how we allocate our resources.

“We need to look at all of our spending, especially on services that we have no legal requirement to provide. Unfortunately we’ve had no choice but to propose cutting services that people value, because the county council simply can’t afford to deliver them all anymore.

“I’d like to reassure parents though that we remain committed to providing support for families on a low income who are eligible.”

Children who start school under one set of transport arrangements will continue to benefit from them until they move or finish school, while pupils from low income families who attend their nearest school on the grounds of parental faith and meet the distance criteria will continue by law to receive transport support.

Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans said: “They will be punished for going to a religious school and that will be totally wrong.

“The council should be working out how they can support youngsters and parents who are going to faith schools.

“It is a vitally important part of education in the county.”

Cllr Dave Harling, education boss at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said it will have an impact on schools in the borough.

He said: “Some children do travel 15 to 20 miles to come to schools in the county.

“It will be interesting to see if the county council has looked at other ways of funding this transport, but local authorities are over a barrel on this. Budgets are shrinking but the proportion that goes on school transport is not. You end up taking away discretionary services because you have nothing for the statutory services.”

The consultation will run until Friday, July 21. To have your say visit www.snapsurveys.com/wh/s.asp?k=149693816566.