HUNDREDS of parents are to lose out on financial help to pay for their children to travel to faith schools, councillors have decided.

Bury Council gives free bus passes to 1,035 of the borough’s 29,000 school pupils.

Of those, 189 do not live within walking distance of their school while 846 attend a faith school and could have gone to another school nearer to home.

The total cost to the council is £364,000 a year.

The Labour-led council says it expects 169 of the 846 children of faith to continue to get the free bus passes because their households can claim benefits.

Consultation about the proposed change was carried out between September 10 and November 9 and 1,062 people gave their views, as well as the Diocese of Salford. At least 59 of those came from people associated with St Monica’s High, Prestwich, and others from those associated with St Bernadette’s Primary School in Whitefield.

In total, 81 per cent of people objected to the proposal.

A total of 306 pupils who study at St Monica’s RC High School receive the passes, as do 125 pupils at King David High School.

Bury Cabinet voted to make the change when it met at Ramsbottom Civic Hall last Wednesday. James Graves, headteacher of St Joseph’s RC Primary School in Ramsbottom, said: “I am really going to struggle to go back to my pupils’ parents and justify this decision as fair.”

Cllr Nick Parnell, said: “When we are having to make £35 million of savings in the next four years, we have had to go against the popular view.”

After the meeting, he acknowledged Labour had pledged in their May 2011 election manifesto to preserve bus passes for faith-school children.

Cllr Parnell and the council leader, Cllr Mike Connolly, said they would meet Diocese representatives and school leaders.

The system is set to change at the end of the current academic year.