If 11-year-old Freya Chamberlain takes up the secondary school place she’s been allocated, she’ll have to take two separate buses on a journey that will take 90 minutes.

She’ll have to leave her Bedmond home at 6.45 in the morning – and then change buses at busy Watford Junction to arrive at Westfield Academy in time for the 8.15am start.

Her mother Gemma says there are 10 secondary schools that are nearer to her home than Westfield.

And she says she’s considering home-schooling her daughter, rather than putting her through such a gruelling daily journey.

“The journey – in the world we live in – is just not safe,” said Gemma. “It’s a public bus – not a school bus – and in the winter the mornings are very dark.

“Westfield isn’t even one of our 10 closest schools. If we don’t get one of our choices we will just have to home school her. I am very angry and very upset.”

Gemma and her daughter are not the only ones being forced to consider a lengthy commute to a new secondary school, from September.

Last Tuesday (March 26) Cllr Sara Bedford raised the issue at a meeting of the county council.

She said there were still a large number of children in the Watford and Three Rivers areas who hadn’t been offered a place at any of their ‘ranked’ choices.

And aside from the six children who had been allocated places at Bushey Academy, she said many were being offered places at Westfield – which, she said, will have a “ridiculously large” 14 form entry.

“Many of these children will have a long journey to school meaning two buses and 90 minutes in each direction – leaving them unable to take part in extra-curricular activities and potentially too tired to get their homework complete when they get back,” said Cllr Bedford, who is also leader of Three Rivers District Council.

She suggested that parishes such as Abbots Langley and Watford Rural, had not benefited from ‘Section  106’ contributions from housing developers, designed to support infrastructure like roads and schools in areas where they had built houses – but which had been used elsewhere.

And she called on the county council to provide schools in areas where new homes were being built.

“It’s about time the county council looked at providing schools in areas where the number of dwellings are growing and not just in areas where they feel like providing schools or supporting academies,” she said.

At the meeting executive member for schools, libraries and localism Cllr Terry Douris said officers were continuing to process school offers.

And he said that additional places were likely to become available next month (April) as parents holding two offers, chose between them. This was, he said, “very much business as usual”.

“I know that education officers work very hard to settle everybody in as many local schools as they possibly can,” he said.

“We have to bear in mind it is not possible to build new schools – and build extensions to schools – for a period of time where there may be a temporary increase,  even though it may span a number of years, a temporary increase in the number of school population.

“But I am very happy to make sure that if the member has a particular issue with particular families to make sure officers respond specifically to that request.”

Cllr Douris said the county council was always looking to make sure new school places were established in the right areas.

“We are always looking to make sure that we put places in the right areas,” he said.

“There is no point in putting places into schools where there is or may not be a need in the long term. We do try very hard to make sure that we get local children into local schools.”

Meanwhile Labour councillor Judi Billing said failing to get a preferred place for 11-year old was one of the “most dreadful” things that could happen to a family.

And she said most parents would prefer their children to be able to walk to the school that was nearest their home, “on the understanding that all schools offered the same level of excellent education”.

Cllr Douris said that it was not possible to build a secondary school – with all the necessary equipment and facilities that secondary schools need – within walking distance of the whole catchment area.

And he pointed to the new Katherine Warrington School as an example where the county council was building a new school in an area of need.

He also said that he recognised the stress that parents go through and the stress young people go through in thinking they will lose their friends.

Equally he said he recognised the opportunity for young people to make new friends when they go to a different school.