A LEIGH school will benefit from a new yellow school bus service following a successful pilot scheme success.

Yellow school buses have been running since last April to Standish High in a scheme funded by Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority and from next January two high specification yellow buses will service St Mary's High at Astley, replacing the currently overused 981 route.

Councillor John Hilton, Wigan and Leigh's spokesperson for GMPTA, said: "We have seen from the pilot scheme running in Stockport that the features of the service, such as reserved seats, regular drivers, CCTV and the introduction of a code of conduct, have had the desired effect in terms of improving student behaviour.

"Hopefully the new scheme for St Mary's will provide a safe and reliable alternative to the parental car. We hope that the positive experiences pupils will have using the new buses will encourage them to continue using public transport when they are older."

GMPTA chairman Cllr Roger Jones said: "We want to introduce more yellow school buses across Greater Manchester.

"In the meantime, we have been experimenting with the introduction of individual features of the yellow bus schemes to normal school services, such as allocating pupils reserved seats and using single deck buses.

"At the moment, these features are being tested on a total of 33 vehicles operating school services throughout Greater Manchester. I look forward to a report back so that we can determine which measures are having the most success and should be introduced county-wide."