Thousands of parents are facing huge increases in travel costs to send their teenagers to school from September.

New government legislation comes into force this year, making it compulsory for children born in 1996 or 1997 to stay in school or in training until they are 18.

Kent County Council provides a travel pass for children in school years from seven to 11, giving them unlimited travel for £100 a year.

They introduced the post-16 travel card after growing demands from sixth-formers, but families will stay have to pay £520 each year.

Dartford mother Samantha Best's eldest son will start sixth form at Wilmington Academy in September.

The 44-year-old was shocked at the steep rise in the cost of travel she will be forced to pay - and which will only be added to when her youngest son starts sixth form the following year.

She said: "This time next year I will be looking at a bill of £1,000 to get them both to school, which is totally unacceptable. It would be cheaper for me to run another car.

"Parents do not have a choice for their children to attend further education, the choice has been removed. Therefore, Kent County Council should be doing their utmost to ensure that that particular group of students and their parents are not compromised."

Ms Best added that many families with children who were not planning on going into sixth form before government legislation was changed will be squeezed by the extra financial travel burden.

"Once parents realise the extra cost they will have to pay to get their son or daughter to school, it's going to cause a real lot of concern, worry and anxiety around the extra cost," she added.

Kevin Shovelton, director of education planning and access at KCC, said: "There were no legislative changes in regard to home-to-school transport with the introduction of raising of the participation age.

"Therefore there is no additional funding for transport and no duty on local authorities to provide transport for post-16 learners.

"Learners are not required to be in school, they can be in any form of education, learning or training, including apprenticeships which may involve payment so transport duties have not been extended.

"These passes (post-16 travel card) are only available from learning providers and they have additional bursary funding available to them which can be used to further subsidise the costs of the cards to students in genuine cases of hardship and where the young people are from low income families."