But how can he say it will ‘have the same rules as state schools’? In the same sentence he says it will ‘have more freedom’ – a curious idea in itself, giving more freedom to a completely untried school than to those with proven track records.
Then he points out that his school won’t have a catchment area – so he can poach bright students from all the others.
And he can do so with 11-yearolds, hitting the middle schools and getting in before the upper schools can make their pitch.
At a time of budget cuts, how can we even think of spending money to set up a new school, which will then take pupils, and the money that goes with them, from existing schools? Sweden seems to have learnt the lesson – free schools were tried and found to widen social divisions while failing to raise educational standards.
British Governments seem to be slower learners – repeatedly they have pinned their hopes on a minority of schools (grantmaintained, City Technology Colleges, Academies, etc.) while being prepared to dismiss the rest as ‘bog-standard’.
In a rigged market like the one Mr Lehain is anticipating, such favoured schools should do well – but at the expense of other schools.
We are extremely disappointed that we were not given the opportunity by either Stagecoach or the portfolio holder Cllr Charles Royden to speak up on behalf of the residents we represent or to give our opinion based upon our extensive local knowledge.
Until this weekend, we had a good, regular and generally punctual service, but now many people will be unable to reach destinations such as shops and schools by bus or even find a bus stop within easy walking distance.
Meanwhile Park and Ride passengers will face longer journeys with more frequent stops.
I am referring to the imminent change of route to the Kempston buses number 1 and 2.
They claim they are doing their bit to help the environment which is ‘company-speak’ to give them more profit as every change is always about money.
Are they doing what Luton did in the 60s and running services to suit themselves and not the passengers? Tomorrow the two routes are merging. They will no longer run to get us to the town centre as quickly as possible but instead we get a 25-minute tour of Kempston.
We are only four miles away from the town, for goodness sake.
The rumour has it that they will put double-decked buses on and where will the mums and buggies fit in, not to mention wheelchairbound people. The new shelter in Elstow that has a display of bus times due to arrive will not be used and the humps in the Elstow Road going to Bunyan Road will cause a few bumps and not a smooth ride.
The plan is to run every 12 minutes but have you been in the backed up traffic along the High Street in the afternoon or evenings? I want to mention the bus stop in Kempston Road for the hospital and people having to cross that busy road rather than planning to use the bus that now runs down Ampthill Road.
The road will not be served at all.
Will people be able to get on any Park and Ride bus without using the parking facility? I despair. It might be quicker to walk but not at my age.
They condemn the introduction of the mobile camera and put out a press release raising concerns about it and sending out a worrying message – ‘The Tories aren’t interested in saving lives and stopping crime.’ Year after year the Liberal Democrats have put forward budget proposals for the sensible and responsive introduction of CCTV and each and every year the Conservatives have voted us down. Bedford Conservatives are obviously in a party to be supported by the local criminal but not by the law-abiding citizen.
This is unfortunate when we should be able to celebrate not only the way that CCTV assists the local police to detect criminals but also the 210 crimes that were observed, and STOPPED, by CCTV last year – nearly one crime per day! The new ANPR system will make it easy to effectively report those people who are committing offences. If people didn’t commit these offences and put the lives of local children at risk then the council wouldn’t need to buy this camera.
While it might be populist to scrap the use of cameras, and the Tories may be doing this to win a few more votes, if it wasn’t for the award-winning CCTV cameras Bedford Borough Council has in place there would be less crime solved and more pressure on the police.
The ability to catch speeding motorists and especially motorcycles from any direction is most impressive.
What a pity therefore the van seems to be rarely, if ever, deployed where and when it is needed most, namely on the Embankment and in St Mary’s Street in Bedford, at any time during the weekend between Friday afternoons and the early hours of Monday morning.
I suspect the notices were probably put there in the name of child protection by some paranoid official.
I also suspect they were of a dubious basis in law and totally unenforceable.
There was, of course, no noticeable police presence to uphold our civil liberties.
I was only too happy to flout the notices and take photos of my little boy enjoying himself in the sand. A simple democratic freedom one would think.
No photography in a public place is the sort of thing we used to laugh about as the repressive paranoia of communist regimes in the former Soviet Union, China and the suchlike.
And now, without any sense of irony, we are prepared to tolerate, even condone and defend it at a family event in a middle England market town.
Throughout the school holidays there is a huge beach in the shopping centre in Milton Keynes with no such prevention of photography notices.
But Steve Lowe’s letter to the Government, if it can be bothered to read about his experiences of the Italian railways made me think back to last year when someone in the group we were on holiday with in Italy said how about a train journey from where we were staying in Campo de Lido on the coast not far from Pisa to Sienna.
I asked the management (the dear lady wife) if she was sure she wanted to do this – I had heard stories of Italian railways and I didn’t want to be held responsible for anything going wrong.
She was adamant so we went with our friends.
Getting the ticket was easy, the train, a brand new double-deck affair was standing in the station.
It was clean, the seats were very comfortable and it had an electronic display that showed the time, the train was due to depart at 10:30am and it did depart right to the second – I know because I checked on the display.
The journey was smooth with great views of the countryside, and the toilets on the train were clean with none of the strange smells you get in train toilets in this country. I’ve found that toilets wherever they are, are important to both my mother in law and the management. Whole towns in this country have failed because of dodgy toilets, if they’re clean then its fine. The toilets on this train were clean.
When we changed to a small branch line, I thought ‘here we go this is going to be interesting I wonder what the delay will be’.
The connecting train was due in six minutes, and in six minutes it came right on time.
The journey on the branch line was interesting, all sorts of people using the train, local people, students and us tourists all in together and everybody talking to each other and us – imagine anyone talking to a foreigner on a British train.
When we got to Sienna we found a frequent bus service to get you from the station into the centre of the city and if you ever get the chance to go to Sienna take it, the city is stunning.
The journey back was on older trains but still clean and comfortable – again even though it was the end of the day the train was clean.
The impression I got was the Italian rail system is run very efficiently in what appeared to be a laid-back style.
It contrasts with what we have in this country – privatisation that has not altogether worked to the benefit to the passenger.
It’s a shame because I used to like travelling by train – but no longer.
I seem to remember being told by politicians in the past that the investments they were making in the railways – with our money –would stop the overcrowding and dirty late trains.
You have to ask the question ‘what went wrong?’ After saying all this there are what I call proper trains that run now, trains that run to time and with clean toilets and good food and some of them go from Bedford. If you want to know more let me know.
Martin Rolls Hill Plantation, Bromham
