School buses told ‘Turn off your engines when parked’

THAME Town Council is to make representation to the coach operators of school buses, asking them not to run their engines when the buses are parked outside Lord Williams’s school.

Image courtesy of njea.org

The decision to contact the coach companies came after a discussion about the Thame Green Living Plan, at a meeting of the town council’s ‘Thame Neighbourhood Plan Continuity Working Group.

Cllr David Bretherton told fellow Councillors, and the Chair of the Green Living Working Group, Charles Boundy, that he had personally been ‘covered in diesel fumes’ recently when he had been passing the school, when several school buses were parked up waiting to collect pupils, with their engines idling.

Other councillors pointed out that the Arriva bus drivers of the 280 service always turned off their engines at the bus stops in the centre of town, thus helping to prevent an unhealthy build up of dangerous fumes.

Clean air will be one chapter of a draft ‘Green Living Plan’ for Thame,  that is expected to be published for public consultation, later in the year. The plan is part of the Thame Neighbourhood Plan which aims ‘To keep Thame as a green and pleasant place to live’. Other chapters will cover such things as Water, Energy and Waste.