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Nearly £1 million could be cut from the money spent helping some of Leicestershire most vulnerable children get to and from schools and nurseries.

Conservative-run Leicestershire County Council has proposed a series of controversial measures to save cash.

Currently some 400 special educational needs (SEN) children get discounted transport.

The moves will also affect some families whose children are in mainstream education.

Parents are asked to pay an annual contribution of £660 for this transport, but low income families are currently exempt from the charge.

Now the council is planning to reduce the level of discount available to children and young people from low income families for transport to nursery and post-16 education.

It also wants to stop offering council arranged taxis and minibuses to transport SEN students to post-16 education and offer a Personal Transport Budget instead.

That will mean parents will have to arrange their own transport with a budget offered to them rather than have council officials take care of it.

Finally the council wants to stop providing transport to post-16 education for eligible mainstream post-16 students.

In all, the proposed changes could save up to £964,000 a year.

The council says it is under increasing pressure to meet the growing costs of SEN transport to school and the demand for it.

However parents have said their families could be plunged into crisis if they lose affordable transport.

They are begging the council to drop the plans.

Annie Bannister’s 18-year-old son is one of the youngsters who benefits from the financial system.

Annie, from Harborough, warned that parents would have to withdraw their children from school if the planned cuts proceeded.

She said: “Our kids can’t stay at home by themselves, they simply can’t.

“Families will have to give up work and it is social workers that will have to pick up the pieces.

“I know it costs everybody but the long term cost of denying them education is far, far worse.

“We want our kids to have the best opportunities in our fairly blighted lives.”

She said it would make it even harder for children to get jobs in the future if they were denied.

Labour county councillor Max Hunt said he had read some of the stories from parents who will be affected by the cuts and they had made him weep.

He said: “The pain they are going through now and the pain we are going to inflict on them is not worth consideration.

“We are hurting the most vulnerable children from the most vulnerable families.”

County Hall says it faces difficult decisions as it looks to save £66 million over the next four years.

It says no decisions have been made and a consultation on the issue runs until December 21.