The consultation document does not explain all the issued clearly. Nor explore the possible solutions sufficiently. Not even the questions are clear. Nor is there is any statistical information on the numbers of people likely to be affected and how many children would apply from each area. The document raises many other questions too that are key to making a complete and fair decision.

Such a consultation document just encourages people to be self serving and not consider the community as a whole. The consultation as it is currently positioned should be discouraged. It is the lowest form of democracy.

I do not trust the Council to make a fair decision. I think the residents themselves will make a far better decision. Therefore I would suggest the council allows a representative group of six residents to form a committee to consider all the facts and recommend a solution the council. They should be able to explain their eventual recommendation to all and sundry in a public meeting.

Or another fair solution would have been to extend Wix school (bliingual stream) instead of Belleville.

I don’t think that the point was having the scheme rejected. My understanding is that a school is welcomed there. And surely people would be delighted to have Belleville there. But what we need to focus on is the admission question: it is just plain WRONG that people cannot attend a school on their doorstep. Therefore the campaign must focus on that question, and clarify with the Council what sort of consultation will be run on admission policy.

Well, they may be not perfect in the email communication but they really stand for Shaftesbury Ward local residents.

However despite all efforts, the project was not rejected at this stage.

Regarding the Chair of the Committee, Northcote road councillors are already elected with a comfortable margin. Therefore I wouldn’t subject obvious collusion of interest.
However, if the Local Government Act 2000 (responsible for promoting high ethical standards in local democracy) applies, it might prevent Councillors with interest in the dossier, to take part of the debate.

First of all, thank you for all your efforts to protect our interests.

We sent objections to our MP, our Shaftesbury councillors and Mr Paul Robinson.

We completely agree with your ideas. It is ridiculous that Children’s Services Dept. (Paul Robinson) is still recommending that it should go-ahead. Where is the logic?

Mr Peter Dawson, the Northcote Councilor, is the Chairman of the Comittee. Obviously it is in his interests to push this unfair project (more votes, his house situated close to Belleville, etc)…

Unfortunately our Shaftesbury Councilors do not show a lot of involvment in the case. We have got only one reply from Cllr James Cousins, but he is unable to attend debates. The comittee member, Cllr Jonathan Cook did not even answer to our email concerning the expansion project. There was the same silence from Cllr Guy Senior who seems not to live in the area anymore.

Indeed the Freedom of Information request is necessary to shed some light on this obscure decision-making.

Kindest regards,
Shaftesbury Ward residents

P.S. Please count on us for any help.