WHITELEY parents are celebrating after the future of a vital school bus has been guaranteed for at least another year.

In September mums and dads of pupils at Swanmore School clubbed together to privately hire a 21-seater bus that they pay £5 a day for per child.

However its future was thrown into doubt when the group couldn't attract sponsorship to help ease the cost burden.

But now more parents who will send their children to Swanmore next year have pledged to get on board the scheme.

That means that costs could tumble by about £1.50 a day because the group can rent a bigger bus and it may be registered as a proper bus route. Jim Tyler, chairman of Whiteley Community Association whose ten-year-old daughter Alice uses the bus, said: "It is great that the future has been secured now that it looks like even more parents are sending their children to Swanmore next year.

"Parents have to decide where they want their children to go to school next year quite soon and I am getting a lot of calls from people asking about the bus.

"There will be over 30 next year which is up from this year as we have 21 regulars and three on the waiting list.

"We are also talking to Hampshire County Council to see if there is any way they can help us further reduce the cost."

Hampshire County Council, the authority that arranges school transport, refuses to pay for a bus to Swanmore because the official catchment school for Whiteley is Henry Cort in Fareham.

But many parents believe their children are more suited to Swanmore because it is a technology college as opposed to Henry Cort which is a sports college.

The county council's deputy education officer, John Clarke, said the authority will only provide transport to the area's feeder school, Henry Cort.

He said: "Where parents express a first preference for a school other than their catchment school, the responsibility for transport to the chosen school then falls on the parents."