A MOTHER fears for her daughter's safety after being told she must walk 45 minutes to school every day.

Bethany Hemblen, from Banbury, is furious after finding out 11-year-old Mia Armstrong will have to hike two miles across main roads on her own to get to class.

It comes after a mix-up over addresses meant Mia was allocated a place at a school more than two miles from her home.

In September she will start at Banbury Academy, despite her mum's request she be given a place across town at North Oxfordshire Academy.

Ms Hemblen said: "Mia isn't the most streetwise 11-year-old, so there is a massive health and safety problem here.

"There are quite a lot of main roads across the route and there will be a lot of traffic as well.

"I start work at 8am and my partner isn't around in the mornings to take her in to school.

"There is a bus that goes into town but it is quite expensive and there would still be a 25-minute walk to school.

"That's not really much better to be honest."

In November, Ms Hemblen applied for Mia to go to the North Oxfordshire Academy (NOA).

At the time of the application the family was living in Wellington Avenue near Banbury Academy, but in March they moved to Portway so Mia could go to NOA.

But despite Ms Hemblen sending the county council proof of address for their new home in February, she was told her application had not been successful because the new address had not been updated. She was then given a place at Banbury Academy.

To make matters worse, Ms Hemblen's other daughter Lexie, six, is likely to go to NOA when she starts secondary school – meaning the two girls will be at schools 45 minutes apart.

She currently goes to Hill View Primary School.

Ms Hemblen, who works at Smart Tots Day Nursery in Horsefair and has to arrive early, said: "It's going to be ludicrous when they are both at secondary school.

"What riles me as well is that the parents who apply for places later in the year have been given places, which makes me think that maybe I should have waited.

"We've already walked down the route with her but obviously you never know what might happen."

County council spokesman Owen Morton said the council was only able to process applications on a family's "provable" address at the time of the application.

He added: "While this may seem unfair in cases where families are in the process of moving house, the alternative of taking potential new addresses into consideration when allocating school places would open the admissions process up to the possibility of wide-scale fraud

"It could also result in some families securing places at oversubscribed schools at the expense of others who fit the admissions criteria more closely."