For further evidence of how Essex County Council has seriously miscalculated, either deliberately or incompetently, the number of children in Colchester for whom places at schools are needed and will be needed in the years ahead, take a look at the Gazette on Monday, April 12.

The paper reports the latest proposals by one department of the county council for a new secondary school in the town.

Meanwhile, County Hall is busily processing the closure of two established secondary schools, Thomas Lord Audley, in Berechurch, and Alderman Blaxill, in Shrub End, because it claims there is a decline in the number of children in Colchester.

Other than the Conservative Party, does anyone else believe the number of children in Colchester, the fastest growing borough in the country, is falling?

Only last week, approval was given to double the size of the town’s newest School, Queen Boudicca Primary, off Turner Road.

Clearly, there is confusion at County Hall.

What I can assure residents is I shall continue to campaign to save the two secondary schools.

I do so in the knowledge 96 per cent of those who responded to the county council’s own consultation said they did not agree with the secondary school re-organisation in Colchester, including seeing Philip Morant School grow to almost 2,000 pupils.

Their views have been ignored.

This is another reason why Colchester should pull away from County Hall and let the borough run its own affairs in the same way as Southend is allowed to do.

Bob Russell
Parliamentary Lib-Dem
candidate for Colchester
Magdalen Hall
Wimpole Road, Colchester