Schools will be saved says MP
July 8, 2010 12:15 PM
Bob Russell outside Alderman Blaxill School, one of two schools in south Colchester which Essex County Council are trying to shut.
Colchester MP Bob Russell says there is no way that Thomas Lord Audley School at Monkwick will now be closed following the Government's axing of funds to the secondary school re-organisation in this part of Essex - and he felt that Alderman Blaxill School at Shrub End would also remain open once discussions are held.
He made his confident comments after his latest intervention in the House of Commons, on Wednesday night, as the full consequences of the decision to halt the Building Schools for the Programme project became clearer.
And he was given an encouraging response from the Secretary of State for Education, Mr Michael Gove MP, who promised Mr Russell that he looked forward to "constructive" talks over the future of schools in Colchester. Mr Russell is now seeking a meeting with him.
Mr Gove said that he was "very well aware of the situation in Colchester" - a reflection on how much Mr Russell's strong campaign to save Thomas Lord Audley and Alderman Blaxill Schools was personally known to the Secretary of State for Education.
Mr Russell told the Commons that, notwithstanding the decision to stop the BSF programme in many parts of the country including Colchester, "Conservative-controlled Essex County Council is still proposing to shut two secondary schools in my constituency."
He added: "They were going to be shut if BSF money had been forthcoming. There is no money, but the Council is still going to shut them - despite the fact that 96 per cent of my constituents do not want them shut."
Mr Gove's response - his reference to "constructive" talks about the future of secondary schools in Colchester - was, said Mr Russell afterwards, "the clearest sign I could have wished for: there will still be a secondary school at Monkwick, and I am determined that the same will apply at Shrub End."
Mr Russell has immediately followed-up what he said in the House of Commons on Wednesday night with a letter to Mr Gove to seek a meeting to discuss how to formalise the current "federation" arrangement whereby The Stanway School, Thomas Lord Audley and Alderman Blaxill schools will operate, as they have for the past two years or so, as a single school from three sites under the Executive Headship of Mr Jonathan Tippett.
What would you like to do next?
-
Subscribe for updates
Follow the party's activity on...
- Twitter:
- Liberal Democrats
- Facebook:
- Liberal Democrats
- YouTube:
- Liberal Democrats