School Funding

£130 million on the table. In order to get it we must allow two of our schools to close and for a piece of green field land to be used for a new road. That will enable Philip Morant school to be made bigger and to ease traffic in Prettygate (allegedly!). It will also mean that the pupils from the two closed schools will have to travel (bus or Mum's car) across the town to their new, bigger, school, thus adding to the already bad traffic congestion in Colchester. It will also enable the land that the two closed schools occupy to be used for house building (at least that is what I guess will happen - rather than create green spaces for people to enjoy).

Now comes the bits that I don't understand.

1. Labour - are divided on the issue. Cllr Dave wants to save the two schools but Cllr Tim wants them to go. Why don't they agree? The money ultimately comes from their beloved Labour government. Isn't the provision of schools in local areas a fundamental socialist principle?

2. LibDem - are united in the view that the people of Prettygate want to keep their green space in Norman Way, but they would like to have the £130 million please. They naturally don't like Essex County Council (who are insisting on the closing of the two schools) as they are Conservative. So, are they doing this to support the people of Colchester or to stick two fingers up to the Tories?

3. Conservative - are united in their view that Norman Way must be sacrificed for this scheme and that the two schools must go, as nobody wants their kids to go to them anyway. Of course, the Conservatives have big posh houses out of town and there is no chance that their kids would go to the threatened schools anyway.

I have to agree that I wouldn't want my kids to go to the two schools either but, every area should have a school - shouldn't it? People don't want their kids to go to those schools presumably because they are thuggish and give a poor standard of education - due I suppose to the yobs intimidating the good kids and the teachers being powerless to control the situation. So what will the yobs do in a new school? Will they turn over a new leaf?

My biggest concern is that the main players are playing party political games, rather than doing the right thing. What is the right thing to do?