Positive change to school bus rules?

<h2>Queenstown Lakes District Council &lpar;QLDC&rpar; Mayor Jim Boult is delighted to learn that the Ministry of Education is bringing an end to the practice of children standing on school buses&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>The issue of children’s safety when standing on school buses was raised by Wanaka Primary School Board Chairman&comma; Andrew Howard earlier this year&period; At the time Mr Howard called for action from Central Government to adopt a one-seat-per-child funding formula or change legislation to stand on travelling buses&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mayor Boult took the matter up with both the Ministry of Education and the New Zealand Transport Agency &lpar;NZTA&rpar; and this week&comma; received advice from the Agency that the Ministry of Education had agreed to terminate the practice of allowing standing passengers on school buses&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mayor Boult’s first message was one of congratulations and thanks to all of those involved&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;This is a bold decision on behalf of the Ministry as there will be costs involved in bringing additional capacity into the school bus fleet&period; But I applaud them for responding to the concerns raised&period; It’s a change that needs to be made to reduce the risks to our district’s children travelling to and from school&comma;” said Mayor Boult&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>The New Zealand Transport Agency &lpar;NZTA&rpar; was also instrumental in delivering this much-needed change and Mayor Boult wished to publicly thank the Agency for their influence in this important issue&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mr Howard said this was is an amazing result&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;People have been asking for this change for decades and to have finally achieved it is massively satisfying&period; Thank you to Mayor Jim Boult&comma; the Wanaka Primary School community and the Ministry of Education School Transport team for making this happen&comma;” said Mr Howard&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>Mayor Boult praised Mr Howard for driving the campaign for change and congratulated him on a successful outcome&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It’s easy to close our eyes to situations sometimes and it takes someone like Mr Howard to stand up and say &OpenCurlyQuote;this situation is ludicrous’&period; I for one am delighted that he did challenge the status quo and has made the daily school run safer for all our children&comma;” said Mayor Boult&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;