St Tudy school update
Having failed to reach a meeting of minds in time for last month's Cabinet, St Tudy school campaigners and Cornwall Council education officials are now struggling to find sufficient common ground to present an agreed paper for May. The love-in which followed the March Scrutiny & Oversight Committee meeting seems to be thawing as the two sides continue to dispute the costs of building a new school. St Tudy campaigners and school governors are planning a public meeting for Thursday (anything else happening that day?) and have until Friday to submit their definitive views to the council.
I'm ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Devon’s Graham Smith, blogging on news, views and some fresh insights into West Country life, particularly the way government works locally and nationally.
Comment number 1.
At 1st May 2010, Compadre wrote:it's interesting that there are TWO sides, officers and campaigners; where are the elected members of the committee and the cabinet member? Officers asked for a policy lead last month and instead got dithering
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Comment number 2.
At 2nd May 2010, Graham Smith wrote:I understand that the Cabinet member, councillor Neil Burden, has attended a site meeting with the campaigners. But you are quite right to point out that we have had several years of dither - and the fast-approaching "use-it-or-lose-it" deadline for Whitehall funding has so far failed to resolve the dispute over how much it would cost to build a new school.
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Comment number 3.
At 3rd May 2010, Compadre wrote:It's a bigger dither! All tied up with the whole small schools debate that most authorities up country settled long ago. Agreeing the capital for a small school is one thing (most of it comes from out of county anyway), providing the revenue funding is quite another. We are paying the price of all those "independents;" never making the politically hard long term decisions. Every decision is made (or not) in isolation, hence a site meeting instead of a strategy. In the meantime children in big schools woefully underfunded and children in small schools with poor facilities and no coherent future.
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