COMMUNITY transport services that take disabled children to school could be wiped out overnight following a row over licences being debated at the European Commission.

Local councils are waiting to see if a ruling is made to force all community transport schemes, that currently benefit from a special permit, are forced to make volunteer drivers be reclassified as commercial drivers.

The decade long row erupted after commercial bus companies complained to the European Commission that large voluntary community transport groups were stealing away business and exploiting the benefits on offer in other parts of the country.

Bus companies in these areas want to see large community groups held to the same licensing standards as them.

Vital community services that help disabled children get to school and vulnerable people get to hospital appointments could disappear overnight if the groups were forced to make all volunteer drivers get a commercial licence, the council’s cabinet member for finance Philip Whitehead has warned.

In Wiltshire, 22 Community Transport services run on a grant basis in what has been described as a vibrant community transport sector.

Cllr Whitehead said: “These rural services, village transport schemes providing transport several times a day every day, not one of those drivers will be PSD licenced and we will lose them overnight. This service has been running without an issue for 25 years. If this goes ahead we will lose all of the drivers overnight. They will be whipped out. That is why we and the Local Government Authority have been lobbying for several years.

“Community Transport is doing the jobs that no one wants to do and are not financially viable. They are going after commercial companies exploiting this service.”

Nationally, a group of commercial bus and coach operators have raised this as a concern with the European Commission, citing unfair competition as the CT permit system offers a lower cost regulatory system when compared to the community transport regime.