Angry parents are promising the Bay of Plenty Regional Council a fight over plans to remove the school buses next July and instead place students on the commuter Hopper buses.

A mother of Tauranga Intermediate pupils says instead of her children embarking and disembarking from school buses at the school grounds, they will instead have to walk about a kilometre to school from 15th Ave. To catch a bus home they will have to first cross 15th Ave.

Another parent points to Cameron Rd becoming much more hazardous, with drivers facing the prospect of navigating through crowds of college pupils crossing Cameron Rd twice a day.

Tauranga Intermediate's senior administrator Mike Bibby says the school will be making a submission on the proposal, but at the moment it is the parents who are venting their spleen.

'We're caught in the middle. We believe what we have got going is good and we don't see any reason for change,” says Mike.

'What we have tried to do in the first instance is just get everyone the opportunity to exercise their democratic right. It's not really only for the school to be saying what's going on, its parents. And that's what we are getting at the moment. In a sense we're just the agents here to meet their needs.”

The regional council is proposing to cut the number of school bus services in the city from 45 to 11 by moving students onto the Bay Hopper network and adding additional urban network buses to provide peak capacity.

Mount Maunganui College deputy principal Ady Van der Beek is urging parents to engage in the feedback process.

The college is looking at the prospect of hundreds of its students being dropped off on Maunganui Rd and having to cross two lanes of traffic to get to the college.

'We're somewhat stunned to see the proposed exit point in the morning is across the road for our students,” says Ady.

'We are going to have students navigating Maunganui Rd, I believe in conflict with an increasing amount of traffic, because if this system comes in, more parents are going to decide to drive their kids to school.

'At a time when we are going to have more traffic on the road we are going to have people trying to navigate two lanes of traffic bumper to bumper. Frustrations will arise. There's a huge potential for injury.”

Car parking on the railway side of Maunganui Rd was removed and a ‘no stopping' zone introduced some years ago after a fatality outside the college.

'And now they are proposing to put in a bus bay, it's ludicrous,” says Ady.

Feedback on the proposed changes to the school bus services can be submitted online at www.drivechange.co.nz until 5pm, June 6.