School Closures Make Me Angry

Kent County Council is seeking to close up to 50 small primary schools across Kent.

Here in Shepway, Selsted school is threatened with closure and Harcourt (in Cheriton) is threatened with merging with Morehall school - a merger which will result in the closure of Harcourt school completely.

The stated reason is that birth rates have fallen and that schools have spare capacity. I attended the 'consultation' meeting at Morehall school last week at which a number of officers from KCC explained the various options. What I heard made me angry.

The Officers presented a huge amount of detail explaining why closures should be considered. There were reams of statistics. In my view schools are more about community than about statistics.

There was genuine distress amongst the audience of parents. Many were understandably horrified that there children would be moved and disrupted. Several parents explained that the closure of their local school would mean having to travel further and perhaps have to use cars rather than walk.

I'm sure that many of you will have seen the amount of traffic congestion that the 'school run' causes every morning outside so many of our schools. It seems madness to force people to travel further at a time when congestion and the environment are at the top of the political agenda. Surely, KCC should try and turn this situation into a positive - there must be some way that the spare capacity could be used to provide smaller class sizes.

It seems that the Government is always keen to talk about 'community' and 'community values' but then implements policies that actually erode and destroy those very communities. Look at what has happened in the reduction of 'beat' policing and Post Offices. It seems that the drive for economic efficiency is overriding common sense and community value.

There is a large and well organised campaign to keep the schools open. It has my total support.

Please help if you can be writing a letter of support (as soon as possible!) to the Kent County Council cabinet member responsible for Education: John Simmonds at 43 Downs Avenue, Whitstable, Kent CT5 1RR or email him: john.simmonds@kent.gov.uk

You can read more about the campaign running to save Harcourt School at www.shepwaylibdems.org.uk/harcourt