IN the lush, wealthy areas of the Home Counties ‘the school run’ is part of everyday life for middle-class mums.

They deliver their children to school in expensive cars and huge gas-guzzling so-called Chelsea tractors before going on to meet others for morning coffee.

That at least is the stereotype and is no doubt unfair to the many couples who have complex rota systems organised with others so they can juggle demanding work commitments with parental duties.

The practice is, however, associated with localities like the borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, which unsurprisingly came top last week in a nation-wide survey as the place where more children are driven to school.

But what was absolutely astonishing about the study by the Department of Transport is that the area with the second highest number of children dropped off by car at school by mum or dad is Blackburn with Darwen borough.

Comments have been made that some schools are ‘on main roads’ and that parents drive children to school because their journeys might involve using more than one bus or are worried about their children’s safety.

What a lot of nonsense.

There’s no significant difference between the siting of schools in Blackburn and countless other areas. School bus services and other forms of public transport may not be brilliant but there are plenty of other places where they are no better – besides if children don’t travel on them they are bound to dwindle.

With school transport it’s clearly a case of ‘use it or lose it.’ Although as a nation we seem to be obsessed with the idea that paedophiles lurk on every street corner, too many parents wrap their children in cottonwool with the aim of protecting them from supposed danger.

Ten or 20 years ago thousands of children in their early teens went out in the dark before dawn and after dusk on paper rounds as a matter of course.

Are we really saying that things have become so bad in this country over the past decade that the same children are risking their lives if they walk to school?

I suspect the truth is a small number of parents may be quite unrealistically terrified their youngsters are going to be abused or abducted from the streets. The majority give in without a fight.

Are we really saying that things have become so bad in this country over the past decade that the same children are risking their lives if they walk to school?

I suspect the truth is a small number of parents may be quite unrealistically terrified for their children’s safety.