Council bosses have stopped paying for a youngster to go to a catholic school – because her family doesn’t go to church often enough.

George, 49, and Heather Heron, 32, of Heather Close, Westbury received a letter from Wiltshire Council to say that from next year their daughter, Lauren, would no longer receive free transport to St George’s Catholic Primary School in Woodcock Road, Warminster.

Catholic parents are entitled to free transport for their children to their nearest denominational school if a panel of priests and teachers determine they are practising Catholics.

Mr and Mrs Heron say they are practising Catholics but they say they can’t get to their nearest church, St George’s in Boreham Road, Warminster, every Sunday because they work weekends at the Moto services on the A350.

Mr Heron said: “One of us works every Sunday so we need the car to get to work, which leaves the other without any transport.

“It is discrimination against catholics.”

Mrs Heron added: “St George’s is the school I wanted Lauren to go to because we’re catholic. She’s doing really well there and has made lots of friends so I don’t want to move her because it wouldn’t be fair on her.

“Lauren could move to her grandmother’s in Warm-inster, that way she could go to church every Sunday but she’s disabled and doesn’t need an eight-year-old to look after.

“I’m feel like it’s an invasion of my privacy and Lauren’s privacy that they’ve checked to see how many times we’ve been to church.”

Lauren and four other children from Westbury and the surrounding villages travel by taxi to and from St George’s, at the cost of £20 a day to Wiltshire Council, equating to £4 per child. But only Lauren’s free place has been cut.

“I have no idea how I’m going to get her to school at the moment but we’ll probably have to use a private taxi firm,” said Mrs Heron.

The council funds transport for ten St George’s pupils.

A Wiltshire Council spokesman said an annual attendance review panel checks that families who are receiving help with travel to a religious school go to church every week.

He said: “Wiltshire Council has a duty to ensure subsidised school transport is granted in a fair and equitable way.

“There is a policy in place, which has been agreed with the Salisbury and Clifton Diocese, regarding denominational transport. It states that parents should be practising members of the religious denomination of the school, and should attend mass on at least a weekly basis.

“If there are exceptional circumstances, the parents can write to the council who will reconvene the review panel to consider the further information provided.”

Molly Johnston, headteacher at St George’s, said: “I haven’t encountered any problems so far but it’s a Wiltshire Council remit.

“Children can come to our school if they’re not catholic of course but they would need to make their own transport arrangements.”

A working party looks at the transport funding applications and invites the priest of St George’s Catholic Church, Father Bede Rowe, to comment on which families have been attending church regularly.

A register is not kept by the churches and each case is reviewed on an individual basis. Every application for free transport is reviewed by the working party yearly.