AN 11-year-old girl has been told she can walk to school along a grass verge by education bosses who have refused her a bus pass.

Amy Dumville, who starts St Joseph's RC School, in Horwich, today, was told she was not eligible for the free pass because she lives only 2.6 miles away via "the quickest walking route."

Passes are only awarded to those living three miles or more away from their chosen school.

However Amy's furious mother, Mrs Wendy Dumville, of Aspen Close, Westhoughton, complains that the route includes a mile long stretch where there is no footpath.

Mrs Dumville said: "I am so incensed about this. The council's quickest walking route is totally unacceptable. "I was astounded by the route they suggested as it is far from safe for a child of 11 to walk every day. The roads are dark and lonely."

When she complained to Bolton's education department she was told that the council does not expect pupils to walk to school.

Mrs Dumville added: "If the council does not expect them to walk why measure the distance in the quickest walking route?

"I think the rules are very ambiguous as the child isn't expected to walk. The council expects parents to put them on the bus, but it won't give us a bus pass to enable us to do this."

Amy's case is set to go before the council's general purposes sub-committee who will look at the appeal.

Until then Mrs Dumville will have to pay 64p a day in return bus fares. A spokesman for Bolton's education department said that officers decide routes from maps and by visiting sites.

He said: "We do not recognise short cuts and we state whether the child should be accompanied where necessary.

"This case will go to appeal and should this be successful all bus fares will be reimbursed."

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