Liberal Democrats question the costs of Melton Schools Fiasco

8.47.42am GMT Tue 9th Mar 2010

Liberal Democrat opposition Councillors will be submitting comments to today's Cabinet on the decision regarding King Edward VII School in Melton.

Cllrs Wright and Galton will question the apparent loss of expected pupils between the figures used for the original consultation in 2007 and now. This came to light in a recent presentation by officers to the CYPS Scrutiny Committee.

Cllr Wright said: "No doubt the Cabinet will reject out of hand the alternatives put forward by the parents and governors of King Edward VII and vote to press ahead with closure. What I am most concerned about is the impact of these further changes on the prospects of pupils who chose to go to King Edward in the belief that the School had a good future. Closing a school is a serious matter and putting these pupils into temporary classrooms at the other schools will only add further disruption to their education".

Cllr Galton added: "The present situation is entirely of the Conservative Administration's own making. They have failed to resolve two key issues, firstly the gross inaccuracy of their pupil forecasting which now anticipates that close to 400 LESS pupils are expected than when the first public consultation took place in 2007. The second thing is that these updated figures were not included in the current consultation. The consequence of these mistakes is that residents and parents in Melton have lost confidence in the Conservatives to make the right decisions and lead the complicated process of School re-organisation. It also begs the question of when it was realised the expected pupil numbers were not accurate?"