FEARS are mounting in Stoke Prior for children as young as nine who will be forced to make a dangerous trek to school from September.

Parents, worried by the fate of the two ten year-old girls in Soham, are horrified by Worcestershire County Council's decision to axe a free school bus service.

Now the mums and dads have set up a committee to challenge the education authority's cost-cutting decision.

The free bus service will no longer be available for pupils living within three-miles of their school - unless their parents fork out £71 per term.

Instead youngsters will have to walk along the busy A38 from Stoke Prior to Bromsgrove.

The Stoke Prior Safety for Children Group met last Thursday night to discuss the situation and they have invited county council officers and town Tory MP Julie Kirkbride to walk the route with them next Wednesday.

Committee chairperson Katherine Troth, of Cloverdale, has a 13-year daughter, Helen, who will walk to South Bromsgrove High School when she starts there this autumn.

However, one of Katherine's other daughters, who attends Aston Fields Middle School, will receive free transport as the distance is over three-miles.

"Penny pinching by Worcestershire County Council will put the lives of our children at risk," she said.

"The removal of free school transport in September will force children as young as nine to walk along unlit country lanes, they will also have to cross a very dangerous road which already has 26 fatalities."

But Worcestershire county councillor, June Longmuir (Con - Bromsgrove South), said: "The free bus service was only a relief measure while we installed the controlled crossing at the turning onto Redditch Road.

"And the bus will still run, but parents will have to pay for their children to use it. The county council has totally fulfilled its legal requirements - it always has done and always will do."

The parents' committee is arranging a petition and will meet again to discuss the matter next Thursday.