A MINI-BUS operator who has ferried students to a Lakes school for 17 years has expressed safety concerns about a new traffic system affecting his run, reports Nadia Jefferson-Brown.

New drop-off and pick-up arrangements have been introduced for pupils at The Lakes School, Troutbeck Bridge, to improve safety on the campus.

All pupils are now being dropped off on the approach road to the school in the morning.

Cars and mini buses are then asked to leave without entering the grounds, while service buses depart via a new one-way system around the school.

The school's business manager Tim Lowe said the system was working well, with enough turning space outside the school for vehicles.

"A key element of this is that the scheme reduces the number of vehicle movements in pedestrian areas by 80 per cent."

But Lakes Minibus Travel proprietor Greg Bateson, whose company daily delivers about 120 pupils from Windermere and Bowness to the school, is concerned that he, as an operator, had not been notified or consulted in advance of the new system.

He also expressed concerns about safety, and wanted operators to be able to drop children off closer to the school, away from the main traffic stream.

" We are blocking the main road in an area that should not be blocked up.

People are overtaking when children are walking between vehicles towards the school." Mr Bateson said he was also worried that buses had to drive around the school grounds to leave.

"There are always going to be children there.

There are six or seven busloads of children all at once.

We are driving through a mass of children.

At that time of the morning, you only have to have one child fooling around and he could be under a wheel.

It is very dodgy."

He said a number of children were "confused" about the arrangements, adding: "One of the reasons parents employ me to take their children to and from school is so they don't have to worry about them.

I have been doing this for 17 years and never had a problem until now.

Now I have parents ringing me up, complaining."

But Mr Lowe told the Gazette the campus was increasingly having to accommodate more vehicles than it was originally designed for, with some sixth formers now bringing cars to school as well as staff.

"We have had to make changes, and we believe it the new system is more convenient and safer for those arriving at school and pupils."

In a letter to parents and drivers, Mr Lowe also said the system was having "a dramatically beneficial effect in reducing the number of vehicle movements in pedestrian areas".

But he assured that traffic movements would be filmed on video to provide "an objective assessment of the scheme's effectiveness."