Regional Council and schools band together to keep withdrawn commercial school bus services running for term four

The five commercial Dunedin school bus services withdrawn by GoBus from the end of term 3 will now continue as normal for term four, thanks to some quick work by the Regional Council and schools.

The short-term solution will see Dunedin North Intermediate School and Tahuna Intermediate School contracting the service, which will be financially underwritten by the Regional Council with support from the NZ Transport Agency.

Regional Council Chief Executive Peter Bodeker said this will give schools the time they need to come up with a solution for 2018 and beyond.

“Following calls from the community for the Regional Council to take action on this, we’ve negotiated a positive outcome that provides breathing space for schools to arrange long-term safe public transport options to school and back. Students can be confident their bus will turn up on the first day of next term to take them to school and return them home” Mr Bodeker said.

Dunedin North Intermediate school principal Heidi Hayward said she was pleased to have been able to work together to reach a resolution. Tony Hunter, principal of Tahuna Intermediate expressed his gratitude to the Regional Council for recognising that something needed to be done in a short space of time and for “helping us reach a speedy outcome for term four that will allow us the time we need to plan for the future.”

From the first day of term four (16 October) through until the end of the school year, the services will follow exactly the same routes as they have before.

As part of making this viable, there will be a small fare increase on these services (around 10%).

The company that will operate the services is yet to be confirmed.

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