LUKE Sproule’s report (Oxford Mail, February 22) of the Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) vote in cabinet in favour of an officers’ recommendation for the sale for £1 of the Harlow Centre site to the secretive Education Funding Agency (EFA) misses much out.

At a well-attended public meeting called by Old Marston Parish Council at Mortimer Hall on February 20, opposition through a hand-vote against the Swan being imposed in the heart of Old Marston was unanimous.

An odd aspect of the meeting was the testimony from Paul James, the CEO of the Learning River Trust which in September 2015 successfully won approval for the creation of Oxford’s first free school.

Mr James seemed to say that he and his trust had no say in the suitability or otherwise of the Old Marston location, though he did at one point nod in agreement that he had seen plans.

On leaving the meeting Mr James commented to me that the EFA didn’t perhaps communicate as well as it should.

One could add that that criticism should also apply to the River Learning Trust and to the county council, for what is being proposed will be a disaster not only for Old Marston and for St Nicholas School, but for the whole of Marston and Headington (think traffic and the hospitals, think the school link road across the Marston Ferry cycle track, think air pollution, etc).

While the OCC report sets the EFA cost for the Swan at £25m, for £18m the county council could expand existing Oxford City schools to meet rising demand for places between now and 2022.

OCC doesn’t have the money and is continuing to cut services. Just think what the council could do with £7m, if that central government money could be made available at local level.

But no: as the National Audit Office report published on February 22 shows, free school budgets appear to be unlimited at a time when in Oxford as elsewhere many schools, including St Nicholas Primary, are having their national funding formula monies cut, when staffing is tight, premises deteriorating, and so the wretched story runs on.
Free schools are not free!


BRUCE ROSS-SMITH
Bowness Avenue
Headington, Oxford