A wanton wasteage

The facts have been detailed in these columns on the revenue effects of the NHS in Worcestershire of the Private Finance Initiative-provided Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester.

Our long-awaited services are under threat now at the Alexandra Hospital, as are other critical NHS facilities in our county.

Officers of the Local Education Authority are already anticipating the future by initiating closures and mergers of schools that are an integral part of local communities, when such actions make a mockery of policies such as "extended schools", they being the cornerstone of critical community development and the integration of all socio-economic groups and races.

As a member of Redditch Education Committee, we administered from Kingfisher House schools in Alvechurch, Wythall and Redditch.

As with further education students, Alvechurch children travelled the three miles or so to Redditch high schools.

Prior to the £63.5 million PFI scheme to demolish and replace modern school facilities, including a local library in Alvechurch, the then Worcestershire County Council cabinet, for better reasons known to itself, decided to place Alvechurch and Beoley schools into the North Bromsgrove High School pyramid. Yet that caused a tortuous cross-country journey of up to 10.7 miles for 13-18 year olds.

Politicians of all parties, it must be said, kept quiet. Why?

I told the truth and was promptly sacked as vice-chairman of the education scrutiny panel but kept my chairmanship of the standing advisory committee for religious education, so clearly my moral integrity was not in question.

Corporate management means a more moral, intelligent and economic utilisation of scarce resources.

As a builder and someone with a lifetime's experience of human resources development, it appalls me sound buildings are being wantonly destroyed when schools built for the Education Act 1870 are still in use in our county.

TOM WAREING

Jays Close

Winyates Green