Protests against proposed cuts to Special Educational Needs transport will take place in Leicester on Tuesday (February 25). Parents say the proposals are a "brutal blow" to already struggling families.

The proposals, put forward by Leicester City Council, would see no city students over the age of 16 with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) offered dedicated home-to-school taxis or a seat on council-funded transport. In a limited number of cases, financial aid would be offered to families. However, this would only be for young people who met a set criteria, including those classed as having “complex” SEND needs, and in some “very limited exceptional circumstances”.

Parents have long voiced opposition to the move, with campaign group Still SEND 16+ claiming that the voices of hundreds of parents, carers and disabled young people had been ignored as part of the council's consultation on the plans. The group says losing access to educational placements would put the futures of disabled young people into jeopardy.

READ MORE: School transport set to end for all Leicester post-16 SEND students

The group said: "Whilst we acknowledge change is needed, the blanket removal of all taxis and minibuses to school is a brutal blow to families who already struggle with extraordinary challenges”.

The proposals have yet to be formally signed off by Leicester City Council and will be debated at a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Scrutiny Commission on Tuesday. Council leaders have been advised that the changes are needed in the face of the authority’s “painful” financial situation.

Despite this, officers have acknowledged that the plan would prove “significantly disadvantageous” for the up to 450 post-16 students who would lose out.

Still SEND 16+ group member and parent Ruth Northey said: "My daughter will be 17 in August and she has multiple needs both education and health-related. As there is no suitable provision in the city, the council have placed her at a specialist college near Loughborough from September 2025.

"The placement will only be three days a week so I need to provide care for the other two days, and now the council are saying I will also need to transport her myself three days a week. It will be about an hour-and-a-half round trip at rush hour. I work full time and it’ll be impossible to continue working and do all that. Does the council expect me to give up my job and depend on benefit payouts?”

Fellow member, Munaf Moosa, who lives in East Leicester, said: "My son is 17 years old, and, his special school, allocated by the council, is about six or seven miles from our house, and I have another two children. So we need to drop them off to school as well.

"If I have to drop my son off [it would add an extra hour onto my journey] and I would need to leave [an hour earlier] to pick him up from school again, and I work full time. It [would be] impossible to pick up and drop off my son [and continue working]. He cannot travel alone, he does not understand and he cannot speak.

"There's a big, big problem we're facing at the moment and we are in too much stress because we don't know what we're going to do."

Still SEND 16+'s protest will take place outside city hall from 4.30pm, prior to the scrutiny commission debating the proposals. For the transport changes to be implemented for the coming academic year, the new Post-16 Transport Policy would need to be approved and published by Saturday, May 31.

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