Last year Durham County Council as the local education authority decided that from September 2020 it would no longer be able to provide free Home to School transport to Wellfield School for pupils from Hesleden. This decision was attributed to revised data generated by a mapping system used to determine walk to school routes rather than a change in council policy.
The decision was queried by Wellfield School, and I offered to help in my dual capacity of school governor and local ward councillor. In the meantime the school generously continued to provide free transport using one of its minibuses.
As a result of that challenge Durham County Council has now agreed to reverse their decision meaning that free school travel between Hesleden and Wellfield has been restored. The council has confirmed that this will also apply to new Yr7 pupils from September 2021 onwards.
The original decision made by the council was based on revised data taken from a national GIS (Geographic Information System) which showed that Wellfield would no longer be classified the nearest school to Hesleden. The decision also showed that national data systems do not always work effectively when making local decisions on matters such as Home to School transport. As is often the case, local knowledge proved invaluable in winning the day.
The methodology used in reaching decisions of this nature is a little bit more complex and technical than the way I’ve described it above so I’ve published the last item of correspondence I received from the council earlier this week to my query on behalf of the school and parents/carers of children in Hesleden. This explains the background and eventual outcome in more detail:
Hi Rob,
Further to your email, an assessment of the walking route from Hesleden to Wellfield is probably no longer necessary. The reason for this is that the GIS mapping system that is used and which is updated annually is now showing that the shortest route is to Wellfield. The following is an extract taken from the admissions information guide for parents that is posted on the website in September each year:
A Geographic Information System (GIS) is used to identify and measure the shortest route. In all cases the GIS identifies the route to be measured by connecting in a straight line the centre point of the child’s house or in the case of a flat from the centre point of the building, to the closest point on the nearest route on the Ordnance Survey MasterMap® Highways Network – Roads and the Ordnance Survey MasterMap® Highways Network – Paths to the nearest school site entrance.
This a national system which gets updated each year, and is not a DCC system. I have however asked colleagues in the council’s IT and Data Team with specific responsibility for GIS to investigate why the shortest route has changed and below are the results of that investigation.
I’ve had a look at the network around the area and confirm that there is a link missing from the processed network that was produced towards the end of 2020. Referring to the same area of the network that was processed in previous years 2018 and 2019, that break in the network isn’t present, although in the case of 2018 there was a break elsewhere which prevents the network from being complete.
I’ve delved into the raw data files that we received from Ordnance Survey, and indeed that missing piece as we see it is there. However the attribution behind it has changed. You may recall that at our initial meeting looking at how we can migrate from the Integrated Transport Network (ITN) dataset to the Highways Network that replaces it, we made a decision to only include Paths that had surfaceType attribution set to ‘Made Sealed’. As the piece of the network that no longer appears in the final processed dataset has its surfaceType now set to ‘Unmade’, this candidate feature is omitted from the network.
I appreciate that the above may be somewhat technical, but I think the basic explanation is that in 2019 the way the ordnance survey was set up, the whole route was attributed to be made sealed and therefore shown in its entirety from Hesleden to Shotton Hall Academy. In 2018 and 2020, parts of the route are attributed as being unmade and therefore the route ends where the unmade section occurs. This means there is no entire route to Shotton Hall Academy and Wellfield therefore becomes the nearest school.
To avoid potential instances in the future of changes to how the route is attributed on the mapping system, I have taken the decision that from now onwards Wellfield will be the nearest school to addresses in Hesleden, and as the distance to the school is more than 3 miles, pupils will be entitled to free home to school transport.
I hope this response is able to answer your query.