Not too late to save school

    WHEN one first looks at the agenda for the county council education committee meeting of October 7, regarding the future of Dover Girls' Grammar School one cannot help but think that it was written by Waiter Mitty.
    It tells us that following consultation meetings there was support for the amalgamation of the grammar schools on a new site and opposition to any other approach to the schools' (Plural?) difficulties.
    Besides omitting that the girls' school does not have any difficulties, the report also fails to mention that many parents argued that the school should be left as it is; that this not being allowed then amalgamation on a greenfield site and if that was not forthcoming, then the school should seek grant maintained status (my husband and I made this recommendation), while other parents added the rider that in the event of an amalgamation, there would be single sex education for pupils between the ages of 11 and 16.
    In the KEC minutes of June 17, although amalgamation on a greenfield site was accepted, the proposal about single sex education was omitted and to date the parents of the girls have not been informed.
    Second, the report argues that a number of possible sites had been suggested during the consultation, but the governors' agreed on a site at Whitfield as there would be easy accessibility, the cost was not prohibitive and planning permission would be forthcoming.
    But the site is adjacent to the proposed A256 Whitfield bypass, a road that is still only a twinkle in the planners' eyes and if the Ash bypass is anything to go by is likely to stay that way for a long time to come.
    The acquisition and site works are going to be financed by, among other things, the selling of Castlemount (that money has already been promised to Astor), with the rest coming from "cloud cuckoo land." The designated land for which planning permission it is suggested will be easy, in reality is covered by NE1 of the Western Parishes Plan, LC2 of the Dover Plan and CC7 of the Kent Structure Plan, all of which state that is an area of local landscape significance and commits the planners to "provide longterm protection by normally giving priority to landscape over other planning considerations."
    In other words, the author of the report expects the hung district council to set a precedent by allowing the school to go ahead on that site for a type of school that both Labour and Liberals are against at national level!
    Further, the district council is precluded from a tourist orientated theme park on the same and adjacent sites!
    It is, therefore, the small print of the agenda in which one must really concentrate, the timetable for amalgamating the two schools, which will be completed by September, 1995.
    On the number of places available at that time, the official anticipates a fall of two per cent, yet another report shows an overall increase in the total school rolls for the district of five per cent for the same period! In other words there will be 10 per cent fewer grammar school places available in five years time!
    The report is aimed at the naive, gullible and those who do not want to look of Dover and the politically astute of Maidstone. The governors of the girls' school have accepted it lock, stock and barrel!
    It is still not too late for the parents to save the school. Many of us will accept an amalgamation on a greenfield site, as long as it is not contrived so that it will only bring about a back door amalgamation on the boys' school site, as the recommendations presented on October 7 suggested.
    Failing that, and KEC have failed-us, then opting out is the only solution to the LEC-created problems that the girls' school now faces. We have the given right under the 1988 Act to explore that avenue.

    MRS LORRAINE SENCICLE,

        21 Danes Court,

            Dover.