Our children, some as young as 11 and just starting secondary school using public transport on their own for the first time, are being let down by an unreliable bus service in the mornings.

As you are aware the journey to Oakwood Park from Staplehurst and other villages on the No. 5 Arriva bus route involves the children changing buses in Maidstone town centre to complete their journey to the school.

Often the bus is overcrowded and late. On arriving in town for the connecting buses, the children are left waiting too long to find one with space on to complete the journey.

This petition is to request the reinstatement of the direct bus that used to run to Oakwood Park in the morning before major road works in Maidstone forced a change to the service, believed to be a temporary measure. There is also a need for it to loop round to serve the Maidstone Grammar School for Girls as their students on the No. 5 route are experiencing the same problems.

The road works have long since been completed and there is a significant increase in the number of children using the No. 5 service to get to Oakwood Park. It makes sense for the full bus to carry on directly to Oakwood Park instead of dropping the children in the town centre, where they are facing delays in finding connecting buses, causing unnecessary extended journey times and worries about being late for school. Our children begin their journeys at 7am (some even earlier) and deserve a hassle free commute to school each morning.

Please add your name to the petition and share. It will be even more important with the onset of the cold winter months and will help to ensure your child gets to school as dry and warm as possible.

Thank you.

EDIT: Arriva have now decided, due to the unreliability of the early No. 5, that the bus should start at Cranbrook at 6:30am meaning a ridiculously early start to the school day for many children! It is now even more important to sign the petition and get this bus route sorted out.