THE family of an 11-year-old boy who faces catching two separate buses to travel less than two miles to school have launched a campaign to get a new service installed.

And Melvyn and Bernadette Eccles, of Garden Village, Darwen, are urging parents in their area to join them in writing to Blackburn with Darwen Council in a bid to secure a service between the area and the town's Moorland High School. Mr Eccles discovered the problem after his son Robert started in year seven at the school last month.

He said: "It's ridiculous. There's no bus between here and Moorland and there absolutely loads of kids from this area that go there.

"I don't know what other families are doing but at the moment my wife and I are juggling things from day to day. The problem is my daughter goes to primary school so some days my wife has to take her, then my son and get to work herself for 9am." Mr Eccles, who works at Robert Barnes metal processors in Darwen, said the only way his son could get to school by bus was to catch one into the town centre and then another.

He went on: "It is under two miles from my house to Moorland High School. I don't how everyone who lives around here is coping and I just think if everyone writes to the council then we might be able to get something done."

A spokesman for Blackburn with Darwen Council said: "We have a statutory obligation under the Education Act to provide transport if there is no direct service already running and the secondary school is more than three miles away.

"We always consider parents views and requests but in this case there is a service, albeit via two buses, and that statutory obligation is fulfilled."

Campaign supporters should write to the Education Department, Blackburn with Darwen Council, Town Hall, Blackburn, BB1 7DY.

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