THOUGH thrift should always be a watchword for town hall spenders, there is disturbing short-sightedness in the cuts Blackburn with Darwen Council is poised to impose on dozens of school bus services.

And the timing of this proposal -- revealed on the brink of the schools' long summer holiday -- smacks of a ploy to steer the controversial cuts through when their effects will not be felt or fully realised.

But the consequences -- ranging from inconvenience and extra expense for hundreds of families to safety risks -- really need to be considered before this plan is allowed to go any further.

For the axing of subsidy for bus services taking youngsters less than three miles to school will entail many of them travelling much further than that -- in some cases, literally miles out of their way.

That is because several of the services involved are not duplicated by regular bus services. As a result, pupils may have to catch two buses -- into Blackburn town centre and out again -- when they used only one bus before.

The sheer bother of this is one thing, but quite another is the nuisance and safety problems that may arise from having hundreds of children -- some of only primary school age -- milling about the already-congested town centre at peak times.

It may be that to avoid this two-bus turmoil, many children will walk to school instead. But , again, this only creates more health and safety risks when droves of children are forced to trudge two miles or more to school -- especially during the dark and damp winter months.

And even if the impact can be alleviated by car sharing, the prospect of these cuts adding to the already-dangerous and troublesome twice-daily problem of 'school run' car congestion outside the town's schools needs to be taken into account.

In all, these proposals stand to create far too many risks and difficulties for them to be worthwhile, from either a financial or social viewpoint. The council must think again.