The Infrastructure Minister insisted in Tynwald that she is not axing school buses.

She spoke to clarify comments she made during a debate on the government’s Transport Strategy.

Responding to a question from Onchan MHK Julie Edge about school buses returning empty past sheltered housing complexes like Heywood Court, Michelle Haywood said: ‘The new bus strategy sets changes in play that mean we will no longer have dedicated school buses, but we will have buses that can be used by the community more generally.’

She said this would open up the opportunity to use returning school buses to provide ‘additional transport options’.

But later she described reports by one media outlet that she was planning to scrap school buses as ‘utter nonsense’.

She said this had been in relation to her comments that ‘perhaps school buses will be slightly different and will be made into service buses’, and so would be able to support the people who live in Heywood Court.

‘I’d like to reassure this court that I am not axing school buses,’ she said. ‘Our school buses carry out about half a million journeys a year.

‘They have a huge value in supporting how our children get to and from schools and there is no intention by the department to axe school buses.’

The 10-year Transport Strategy bills itself as a ‘vision for a safe, sustainable, accessible and equitable transport system’.

It aims to improve road safety, support active travel as the ‘first choice for urban journeys’, increase use of public transport and encourage alternatives to car use.

The strategy says there will be new legislation to support adoption of new low-speed, lightweight, electric-powered ‘micromobility’, including e-bikes electric scooters (e-scooters.

And it says the government will support research, development, testing and piloting of automated transport which it says has the ‘potential to transform travel on the island’.