A £250,000 cost-cutting exercise could see the end of free bus travel for hundreds of secondary school children living in Darlington.

Currently pupils living over two miles from their nearest or associated school - and those living closer on routes with spare capacity - qualify for free travel.

The plan to return to the statutory three-mile minimum will change all that and could result in more parents choosing to send children to their local secondary school.

That could benefit Branksome, Eastbourne and Haughton schools in particular.

Mr Alan Docherty, secretary of the new Darlington Socialist Alliance and Unison representative at the town hall, has condemned the move.

He said: "This bizarre cost-cutting exercise undermines the safer routes to schools and school travel plans initiatives. It is symptomatic of a cash-strapped authority with an inadequate revenue budget."

He claimed the proposal was socially divisive and said: "Relatively disadvantaged children living on the Skerne Park and Firth Moor estates will no longer benefit from associated status and school buses will be withdrawn from Hummersknott and Hurworth schools, two of the best in the borough.

"That will leave spare capacity for children from the more affluent rural village suburbs to attend these prestigious schools."

He added: "Parents will drive their children to school, reducing their exercise while polluting the air and increasing carbon dioxide emissions.

"Children forced to walk these longer distances will be at risk of injury or death from the increased car traffic."

The report says that the current cost of providing the buses is over £400,000 or nearly £300 per pupil.

At present Carmel RC technology college uses six double-decker buses and one single-decker plus a 16-seater minibus.

Under the new proposals two double-deckers would be sufficient, an eventual saving of £76,225.

The introduction of charges for concessionary travel - at an estimated £50 per term - could raise £27,450 a year.

Coun Eleanor Lister, cabinet member with responsibility for education, said she resented the implication that only Hurworth and Hummersknott were good schools.

She agreed : "It is a thorny issue and it is difficult. But not everyone is being treated evenly at the moment. Some children, depending on where they live, can catch a bus. Others a street away don't qualify."

She said teenagers attending local schools would be healthier if they walked. Not all parents would take them in cars.

"The main point I want to emphasise is that this is dead money which could be better used in the education system We are having to pare things back and back and make savings as it is."

The report will go to the next lifelong learning scrutiny committee and will also be put out to consultation with schools and parents