Monmouthshire County Council, which four months ago confirmed changes that will cost more than 100 children their free bus passes, has now ‘expressed regret’ at the decision.

From September schoolchildren in Monmouthshire will only qualify for a free bus pass if they live more than three miles from their secondary school or two miles for primary school pupils.

The county council tightened its qualifying distances, which had been two miles and one a half miles, to bring them into line with the Welsh Government’s statutory distances and said a home to school transport bill of £7 million a year was unaffordable.

The decision was confirmed in October last year and the cut to the transport allocation included in the current budget that was approved in March by the Labour-led council.

But at their July meeting councillors backed a motion by Conservative councillor for Portskewett, Lisa Dymock, which says the authority ‘regrets’ its adoption of the statutory distances ‘will cause financial hardship and logistical difficulties for many Monmouthshire families’.

Several Labour councillors spoke in support of the motion and criticised how the decision had been implemented.

Labour’s Rachel Garrick said 13 children in her Caldicot Castle ward, who attend a local faith school, are impacted and claimed no parents were aware of an email from the council regarding it.

The council’s consultation was also criticised while Conservative member for Mitchell Troy and Trellech, Richard John, said children in his ward will be expected to walk six miles to and from Monmouth Comprehensive.

Former cabinet member for education, Cllr Martyn Groucutt, defended the original decision and said the council was being “ripped off” on some bus contracts, which operators can hand back at short notice.

He also said when he made the decision he had spoken to headteachers and none had raised school transport as a concern.

Current cabinet member for education Laura Wright said she was “entirely happy to support the motion” but defended the “unfortunately necessary” changes.

The Abergavenny councillor said: “It was not a decision we wanted to make but governance involves difficult choices”.

She said it was better to continue to support services such as educational psychology in schools than continuing to provide a more generous transport policy.

She also said the other points in Cllr Dymock’s motion regarding expediting appeals, contacted affected families and setting out their rights to appeal and working with schools and communities on “exploring, safe alternatives” were already being done.

At the meeting it was also confirmed 51 primary pupils and 64 secondary pupils will lose their entitlement to free transport from September as a result of the changes and a further three pupils will no longer be entitled to a bus pass as a safe walking route to their school has been identified.

The council had previously expected more than 300 children to be impacted but said final figures wouldn’t be known until application for this September had been made.