Kirkburton pupils were left out in the cold when school buses failed to pick them up.
Around 150 pupils from Kirkburton Middle School were left stranded on streets in Shepley and Shelley at around 8.30am this morning after Yorkshire Tiger cancelled the two dedicated school bus services – numbers 422 and 410 – due to an organisational blunder.
A member of the bus company's staff was to blame for the error after he mistakenly thought that the school was closed.
And parents, who were only alerted to the problem one hour later by the school, were further incensed when they were told that the company refused to send out replacement buses to get them to school.
Those not at work were forced to rally around and try to drive as many as they could to the school.
One Shepley parent, who was already at work in Leeds along with his wife when got a text from the school to tell them what had happened, said: “What Yorkshire Tiger did just beggars belief.
“You expect a dedicated service to never fail to pick up its passengers, especially when they are only children.
“My son was left to walk down the main road with just his friend before they managed to get a lift with his mum.
“The pupils must be some of their most vulnerable passengers and I think it’s a massive failure of responsibility on Yorkshire Tiger’s part.”
Staff at the school only became aware of the problem when one parent contacted them at around 8.40am and had to call Yorkshire Tiger themselves to get answers.
They were told that a staff member had cancelled the buses after he found out that Shelley College was closed due to a training day.
The college pupils use the two services first, before they collect those travelling to Kirkburton Middle.
School head teacher, Gary Johnson, even went out in his own car to pick up those he found attempting to walk the up to 2.6mile route on their own.
He said: “The company told us that they had tried to ring up to enquire if the school was open earlier in the morning but they left no message and didn’t ring again after 8am when staff man the phones.
“It left a lot of parents feeling anxious due to not knowing where their children were.
“All the pupils got to the school by around 10am, which meant that they missed the first lesson.
“Sometimes it can’t be helped if one bus breaks down but never have both not turned up.”
A Tiger company spokesman said the company would make a donation to the Isaac Nash Trust to apologise for the slip-up.
He said: “I did try to phone them and just thought that the school was closed because I couldn’t get through.
“The school contacted us just after 9am but we weren’t able to send other buses because we didn’t have enough drivers after that time.
“I’d like to apologise to everyone affected and ensure them that this will never happen again because in the future we will send buses whether the school is open or appears to be closed.”
Yorkshire Tiger will return all pupils who use the bus from the school as normal this afternoon.
