MORE than 20 students have had to drop out of college courses at the nationally-acclaimed Hereford Sixth-Form College because of poor and costly public transport – with the issue now been raised in Parliament.

The city college attracts a number of students from the Monmouth and Abergavenny areas, with latter’s train link previously having come in for some criticism.

North Herefordshire Green MP Ellie Chowns told transport minister Simon Lightwood she was ‘shocked’ that 21 students at the college had dropped out this year alone due to the unreliability and cost of getting there.

Jago Frost of Ledbury, who will shortly sit his A-levels at the college, then accompanied Ms Chowns at a meeting with train company bosses.

“It has affected me enormously this year,” he said. “I’d leave for the station only to discover when I got there the train was cancelled.

“So you take the bus, but it’s much slower so you miss the start of lessons, and have no time to stay afterwards to study.”

With a conditional offer to study geography at the University of Oxford, exam grades matter, he added.

Fellow A-level student Alanna Leeming said the service from Ledbury “goes through patches – you have two weeks with no issues then one week there’s constant problems”.

“So everyone tries to take the bus, and they can’t all get on,” she said.

Likewise when returning from Hereford in the evening, “the bus may fill up at the bus station then drive straight past the college”, she added. “You then have another hour or two to wait for the next one.”

The college’s executive principal Peter Cooper confirmed that the situation has got particularly bad this last year and added: “We are an excellent college, but students need to be able to get to us. It’s incredibly frustrating.”