South Yorkshire parents left £1,000 out of pocket over cancelled school ski trip

Simon Lilley forked out £1,095 to send his son Matthew on a five-day school ski trip to northern Italy in April, only to see the holiday cancelled because of coronavirus.

Matthew was meant to be one of 80 young people from Wickersley School and Sports College in Rotherham on the trip to Bormio in Lombardy, joining hundreds of pupils from all over the UK on their schools’ annual trips to the Italian Alps.

However, more than two months after the trip was meant to be taking place, none of the parents have had any money back from Dronfield-based firm, Ski and Sports Travel Group.

Simon said that while many of the parents did expect some delay in getting their cash back, to wait so long without even hearing from the company beggared belief.

He said: “Some parents will have lost their jobs or been furloughed and could do with that money back.

“Another parent took out a loan of £1,000 to send her child and she is paying that off but has got nothing to show for it.

“We just seem to be coming up against a brick wall with the school when we try to do anything about it.

“Our contract is actually with Wickersley but no parent wants to sue the school as they haven’t got a lot of money at the moment either.”

Ian Pinder from Ski and Sports Travel Group, however, said every penny the Wickersley parents’ money was ‘100 per cent secure’.

“If we had to repay 100 per cent of a school’s money we would go into liquidation and that is in no one’s interests at all,” he said.

“So we have negotiated that we will pay a proportion of the money and the school’s insurance will pay the rest.

“Lots of schools in Sheffield have already got their money back but there are few like Wickersely which are still waiting on their insurance.”