“If this stops at 16, we can’t both keep our jobs,” says Leeds parent campaigner Ailith Harley‑Roberts, who has joined protests outside Civic Hall after the council voted to withdraw free post‑16 SEND transport to save £800,000. Families say they will face hours on the road or a hit to incomes to keep teenagers in the right setting.

From September 2025, new applicants will move to a personal travel allowance of £1,000–£3,000 a year depending on distance, with limited council‑organised transport in exceptional cases. Existing learners remain on current support unless their circumstances change, the council says.

Fresh figures from the Department for Education estimate 470,000 under‑16s in England-around 6% of pupils-are entitled to council‑funded home‑to‑school travel. Of these, roughly 180,000 have SEND, and about 16,000 travel alone in single‑occupancy vehicles. Including post‑16, the DfE puts the total at about 520,000. The dataset is based on returns from 115 councils earlier this year.

The Local Government Association says councils spent about £1.5bn on pre‑16 SEND transport in 2023/24-part of £1.73bn across SEND transport overall-and project costs near £2bn in 2025/26. Average spend is around £8,900 per SEND pupil each year, far higher than mainstream transport.

Costs bite hard in the North. North Yorkshire Council told the Yorkshire Post it is spending about £137,000 a day on taxis for pupils, with the authority also tightening eligibility to “nearest school” to curb overspends from September 2024. In Parliament, Thirsk and Malton MP Kevin Hollinrake said North Yorkshire spends more on school transport than on children’s social care.

By law, councils must provide free travel for ‘eligible’ pupils-those beyond the statutory walking distance (two miles under eight; three miles eight and over), those who cannot reasonably walk because of SEND or mobility issues, or where the route is unsafe. The Department for Education’s statutory guidance, updated in January 2024, sets out these duties.

School leaders warn transport is part of the attendance picture. “Council‑funded transport plays a crucial role in ensuring pupils can access a suitable education,” says NAHT’s Rob Williams, adding that cuts risk widening attainment gaps and piling pressure on parents.

Ministers say they want more children’s needs met closer to home. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has delayed the SEND reforms white paper to early 2026 to allow “co‑creation” with families and experts, while Schools Minister Georgia Gould says no parent should worry about pupils taking “long journeys alone”.

The National Audit Office calls the SEND system financially unsustainable without urgent reform, warning that dedicated schools grant deficits could reach £4.6bn by March 2026-when the temporary ‘statutory override’ keeping those deficits off council balance sheets is due to end-putting many town halls at risk of issuing section 114 notices.

MPs on the Education Committee want ministers to retain EHCP entitlements and introduce national baseline standards so mainstream schools have the staff and kit to support more children locally. They argue that removing legal protections would deepen mistrust among families.

Back in Leeds, the council says it will expand independent travel training alongside allowances. Parents counter that many teenagers still need door‑to‑door support, and fear the switch will push some out of education or out of work. “Absolutely essential,” is how families describe the service.

For Northern employers, this isn’t abstract. If parents are driving school runs across the city or out to specialist settings, shifts go unfilled and costs rise. Ministers promise a better deal by 2026; families here will judge that on whether their children can get to the right classroom, in their own community, every morning.