With regard to the debate about the proposed closure of south Colchester secondary schools – I feel I need to comment about how the transport of 1,500-plus young people across town will make a difference to traffic on a daily basis.

I live in Mersea Road and work at the hospital on the other side of town. During school-term time, it currently takes me in excess of 40 minutes to drive from my home to the Turner Road site, due to the traffic on the roads.

During the recent halfterm week, it took me ten minutes door to door. It doesn’t take an expert to calculate that the reduction in traffic was due to the absence of schoolchildren and college students.

The trip home is often just as busy, and I am frequently left stressed and exhausted.

I do not want to imagine the impact the enormous amount of additional traffic would have on this daily scenario, given that many of the children having to travel further to school would not qualify for free school transport and will therefore be transported by their parents.

There are insufficient safe cycle routes to enable children to choose this method of transport. As for the exorbitantly expensive idea of all children being issued with a free bus pass – I will not hold my breath.

With reference to Essex county councillor Stephen Castle asking us to “think of the children”, when considering the ongoing Philip Morant land access debate, Essex County Council has never considered the children in any of the many “consultations”, choosing to override the wishes of an overwhelming majority of Colchester children and parents.

For the headteacher of Philip Morant to then request politics are not brought into the land debate is absolutely ludicrous.

In my mind, the whole schools fiasco has never been about anything else!

I reiterate the extra travelling will undoubtedly have an effect upon the quality of life of the young people who have had no choice in this decision – hardly empowering.

Clare Dillon Mersea Road Colchester

...I have to record my disappointment with the Labour and Independent cabinet members of Colchester Council over their voting on the county’s schools proposals.

As borough councillors, it is wrong of them to put the interests of one school, which happens to serve their wards, above the interests of Colchester as a whole.

The current plan is a bad one, knocked up hurriedly to serve the political interests and cover the embarrassment of Lord Hanningfield and the county council.

That is the political conflict that the headmaster of St Helena School should be considering. Tempting as the transitory lure of a pot of gold is for his school, he should have in mind education in Colchester as a whole over the next two or three decades.

Our MP, Bob Russell, is already trying to resolve the great mystery of just how much money is on offer and what is to be allocated where. There is a similar mystery of just how the proposed measures will cover Colchester’s growing population over 20 or 30 years and the matching of educational provision to areas of population.

Announcing the plan, Lord Hanningfield made great play of it being the only one possible. The county chief executive has just scotched that by indicating in her letter other plans can be considered but that they will “take time”.

Those plans could and should have been offered for consultation too. Why were they not?

People can be excused for crying “stitch up” over a blatant attempt to put the Conservatives back in power by dividing the coallition.

The “Charles Lucas Group” of councillors, as they might be called, keep referring to the firm prospect of us losing the money if Colchester Council does not agree to facilitating the road.

That is most insulting to the Colchester public, who, courtesy of the Gazette, have been able to read all the relevant correspondence.

There is no justification for the road in any one of the letters.

Any justification can only emanate from Philip Morant itself, which has been remarkably silent on the matter. Indeed, its recent offer to use the new access only for delivery vehicles and emergencies exposes the complete lack of justification.

This matter must go to judicial review.

Peter Thompson
Quiet Corner
Stanway Green