The General Election period has been blamed for not allowing a Powys County Council scrutiny committee that deals with education, the time to probe a draft new school transport policy.

At a meeting last week councillors received a report providing “interim” feedback from an ongoing consultation on tweaks to the Home to School Transport policy.

At the meeting Conservative, Cllr Gwynfor Thomas, the chairman of the Learning and Skills scrutiny committee blasted the council for not allowing his committee to also debate the proposals.

Cllr Thomas said: “This should have come to both scrutiny committees before going to consultation.”

He added he was also “disappointed” that the consultation period had been run over the school holidays and that believed it had only been mentioned on the council’s social media “once.”

Passenger transport manager Sarah Leyland-Morgan said: “Unfortunately we were pushed back in being able to get this policy out for consultation due to the General Election.”

Head of highways transport and recycling John Forsey said: “If we want to implement it for the next admission round, we have to get a decision by the end of this month.”

“This should have gone out much earlier, but we are where we are.”