Showcase decisions

Tuesday's full council meeting promises little, judging by the agenda - unless somehow public or councillors add a bit of spice.

One of the public forum questions might have special resonance for us in Stockwood and other places where schools have been closed down in the name of 'efficiency'. It suggests that the council's purchase of the failed St Ursula's private school, and the deal that brought Oasis in to run it as an Academy, has now ensured that the school survives with a roll of just 64 students. Tell that to the parents of the children of Stockwood Green and other schools with rolls allegedly so low that they had to be closed last summer.

I've got some transport questions tabled myself, about Plot 6, real-time information, and smart travelcards. By chance, they're all relevant to a decision to be taken by full council later in the meeting, endorsing the latest West Of England Joint Local Transport Plan.

That plan (JLTP3) offers next to nothing new, next to nothing to offer a decent smart card system, a proper public transport hub, or comprehensive real time information for travellers. It doesn't seem to have been touched by an exhaustive, expensive programme of public consultation. It doesn't even refer to the potential for a Passenger Transport Authority with powers to provide transport as a public service. None of the things, in fact, that could actually bring the all-round qualitative change to Bristol's public transport that could persuade motorists city-wide that it's a better option than the car. JLTP3 tolerates the prospect of ever-rising traffic in this congested city.

No doubt the council will approve it, rather than rock the West of England boat. In doing so it will be backing a programme of prestige projects that are unlikely to get funding, while putting the real opportunities to improve Bristol's transport on the back burner.

A Day in the Death of Stockwood Green School

Throughout last year, the council's 'Primary Review' set out to meet targets by closing schools. Educational needs and parental choice were casualties of the process. Other casualties were the truth and any balanced assessment of what was best for the children concerned. Errors and half truths and the threat of closure were enough to trigger a response - children being moved to other schools - that paradoxically justified closure on grounds of falling rolls.

The whole sorry saga is spelled out in this 'statement' from the Stockwood Green governors, which was presented to the council by Stockwood Cllr Jay Jethwa last month - at the end of a long and exhausting full council meeting. It was barely noticed there, so I thought I'd republish it here, in the hope that someone might learn something from it, and maybe prevent such bureaucratic and political stupidity happening again.

Stockwood Green School: statement to Bristol City Council, Sept 2009