Hear All Sides: School Closure Debate

Any factual errors in Councillor Johnson's letter should have been pointed out privately by the chief executive who, as an employee of the council, should not become publicly involved in political discussion.

The apparent politicisation of the chief executive reveals how subservient council officials appear to have become to the local Labour leadership.

Ms Burns is a local government officer and her public criticism of an elected representative is totally unacceptable. Why does she feel it necessary to involve herself in this manner? Is she speaking for herself or Councillor Williams? Why does Coun Williams send her to public meetings about his education plans, but not attend himself? Why does he continue to hide behind Ms Burns?

There are important flaws in her letter. She says she does not want to jeopardise the good work done by Longfield and Branksome by allowing talk of possible closure. Well, what about the good work done by Hurworth School?

Furthermore, council figures show there will be a surplus of places if the academy is built, so it is right to ask, as Councillor Swainston did at the last council meeting, what effect this would have on the viability of other schools.

If heads and governors in the town are so supportive of the academy, why not offer one to them and use council funds to rejuvenate Eastbourne and modernise Hurworth?

Can we have some straight answers, please? We've had enough secrecy and obfuscation, and remind Coun Williams not to use independent council officials for political proposes. - Councillors Steve Jones, Fred Lawton and Martin Swainston, Liberal Democrat

I WAS shocked and stunned at Ada Burns' comments in reply to Conservative Councillor Charles Johnson.

Firstly, many years ago, our Labour council leader said the council would never close Hurworth School, but look what it is trying to do now. Branksome and Longfield stakeholders should be worried.

Secondly, she says the council would not want to jeopardise Longfield School's hard work after gaining a prestigious IT award. Yet they are happy to jeopardise Hurworth School's hard work, which does not just have one prestigious award but is prestigious in its whole capacity and is recognised nationally as the best school in the area.

Thirdly, she said Coun Johnson suggesting Branksome School will close will do nothing but upset everyone who is committed to the school. This just takes the biscuit - look what the council has done to Hurworth stakeholders, the community, the staff, the parents, the children and the governors.

The council has caused so much unnecessary upset and worry, not to mention public money in holding information sessions, ie presentation material, flyers and resources etc, when in fact it is not part of the formal consultation and there is very little chance the council will even receive funding for an academy. - Julie Jones, Hurworth.

PLEASANT SITE

IT was good to see that both the Church of England's architect and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) have approved the preferred site for the proposed academy.

Hopefully, it will go some way to convincing people that the site is not the sink hole some have described and that, with careful planning, will be as safe, secure and pleasant as any other site.

It was also good to see that so many elected representatives (council and community) turned up for the meeting at Eastbourne School to support the parents in what was a difficult and emotive atmosphere.

I found it strange that supporters of Save Hurworth and Rural Education (Share) claim there is no support from the people of Darlington for the new school based on numbers attending the presentation.

Unlike Hurworth Village itself, this part of town has five separate wards, all with feeder schools who are the focal point for the future, which is when the proposed academy will be built. The true feelings of the area will come to light with the formal consultations. - David Preston, Darlington.

INFORMATION SESSIONS

With the numerous council-run academy information sessions now almost complete, it must be apparent even to this council that there is no support for their proposal to close down Hurworth school.

While the Hurworth sessions attracted huge numbers, unanimously opposed to the closure, the remainder have had tiny numbers of parents, usually outnumbered by councillors and representatives from Share.

That is with the exception of Middleton St George last evening. With the audience restricted to purely current parents of the primary school, it was made quite clear to the council that this community wants nothing to do with their academy plan. Many people moved there in the first place to get their children a place at Hurworth.

I now understand that the governors of the MSG primary (Church of England school, remember) have decided not to endorse the Church of England-sponsored academy at Cummins.

If they cannot even garner support from this constituency, how can they possibly suggest their proposals have any level of public support?

The council say at each session and on their website 'We want to hear your views'. Well, they have heard them, not from councillors, council employees or their affiliate groups, but from the people of Darlington - they do not want an academy at the expense of Hurworth school.

It is now time for the council to swallow their pride, admit they are wrong and produce viable and positive options for secondary education in Darlington. - Carolynne Marshall, Hurworth.

branksome future?

READING Ada Burns try to worm herself out of the hole Margaret Asquith, the council's education supremo, and herself have dug for themselves in (HAS, Feb 13) was astonishing. At the St George's School academy proposal parents' meeting in January, a graph produced by them clearly showed that, as a result of falling birth rates in the Darlington Borough, a school may have to close now, so they picked out successful Hurworth.

However, the decline is shown as expected to continue for the next decade, meaning the closure of another secondary school.

Ada then advised on what grants would be made available to which schools. Given that Hurworth/Eastbourne will be a foundation school, Longfield will receive significant funding for a specialist sporting/IT school, Hummersknott will receive funding for a language school, Haughton Community School will be rebuilt and Carmel will also obtain a grant for religious links, then it is blatantly obvious to Branksome parents which school they have identified for closure, as it will be run down as Eastbourne has been. - Mark Anderson, Middleton St George.