I read your article about secondary school placements last week with some foreboding.
I feel for all those children that have for the next five years at least a daily commute to a new school not of their choice adding at least two hours to their already busy lives.
Not only do they have to cope with probably the most stressful time of their academic life, but they are also being inconvenienced by Lincolnshire County Council and South Holland District Council short-sightedness regarding a robust secondary education strategy in this area.
This, unfortunately, is the tip of the iceberg.
It is quite evident that we’ve run out of school places in the local area and with more and more houses being built in the Pinchbeck vicinity, more children in the coming years will have to suffer a long commute out of the area to a school not of their choice.
Currently, I do not see any plans by the local authorities to address this problem with lack of providing infrastructure, on the contrary the authorities seem very quiet on the matter.
They almost seem oblivious to this problem and probably hope it will go away by itself but it is only going to get larger.
Bear in mind a school will on average take five years in planning and two to three years to build at approximate cost of £30-40million.
If we look at the flip side SWRR the whole project was estimated to cost £109.5million.
The cost is likely to increase as labour and materials costs rise.
It is not due to be fully operational until 2036, but the timescale is predicted to slip.
So, in summary, by the time the SWRR is fully operational, the Pinchbeck area could have planned and built 3.5 secondary schools.
My question is: What are LCC and SHDC going to do to sort out this growing problem for the local community?
Terry Moore.
via email
