CORNWALL Council has announced it is looking into raising the prices of school transport for kids in certain areas by 30 per cent. 

The council currently provides a subsidised transport scheme for teenagers aged 16-19 if they fall within certain criteria, including living at least three miles from the nearest school or college that offers their chosen course.

The council has claimed that the current model is no longer sustainable and that an upcoming consultation will discuss raising the contribution from parents and carers to £700, and then rising in line with inflation each year after that.

This Skipper's problem with that is, almost all of us are struggling with day-to-day costs already, so how on Earth are we supposed to just magic additional cash out of thin air to deal with increases such as this?

If wages rose with inflation, fine, but they don't. So why then would they use this as a model for setting price increases?

If the current model is unsustainable, then how about Cornwall Council look at other ways it spends its money and makes savings in areas that won't adversely affect those already struggling?

Maybe the additional money required for this scheme could have been sourced from the same magic money tree that was used to try and prop up Richard Branson's latest intergalactic enterprise, for example

Describing the service as something they're not "legally required to provide," also gives this Skipper flashbacks to a time when leisure facilities, like a certain swimming pool in Falmouth, were described in such a way. 

We all saw what happened there...