Letter: To school by car

Sir: The two people quoted in your article "Government declares war on school run" (20 May) were men. Stand outside your local school and see how many of the parents delivering or collecting their children are men.

Is it really possible to divorce school runs from the wider changes in our society - the fear of "stranger danger", parents often placing their children in schools which are not geographically the closest and, above all, the rise in working mothers who have to fit the school run into increasingly busy lives?

If central government is really serious about tackling this issue why doesn't it help fund school buses that would have designated pickup points and in one fell swoop cut down car use?

If local authorities and schools want to reduce car use and the "chaos" outside schools, why not have pre-school clubs or supervised time before school starts. The gates of my children's school open at 10 minutes to nine, precluding parents having any flexibility in getting their children to school and themselves on to work in reasonable time.

I would like to see the response of some male Members of Parliament and "spokesmen" if they had the responsibility of getting their children to and from school on a daily basis.

KEITH SIMMONDS

London N12