News in brief
Occasional newsletter
Health service losing its fight for life?
Beds. on Sunday this week leads with a pretty dismal series of stories suggesting that the end of the NHS in Bedfordshire is drawing near. The allegation is likely to cause uproar locally. Alarmist? Or has BOS uncovered something that ought to worry the taxpayer? Click on the appropriate picture for further details.
Latest on Nirah
According to BoS the campaign to raise money for the Nirah project is steadily gathering pace – and still attracting criticism.
Plans have been made to carry out a sponsored parachute jump with at least £100 from each jumper going to the project as they aim to raise £300,000.
Each participant will be awarded with a bronze award which gives the jumper and a friend a 25 per cent entry discount for the first five years when the park opens.
The event is being organised by fund raiser Ken Lynch who said:
“I fully support the Nirah project and I feel that a parachute jump would be the perfect way to get people involved in raising the money needed.
“The event should take place in September or October and anyone over 16-years-old can take part. If people are experienced they can solo jump or for the less experienced and disabled a tandem jump can be arranged.
“This is a great community project that will benefit the county and I appeal to everyone to take part – even county councillors.”
A spokesman for Nirah added:
“We are delighted that people from all over the county are responding to our appeal which currently stands at £15,100.
“We'd especially like to thank Ken for rallying such support. We are now discussing which of the Nirah members will be taking part in the jump.”
MPs still cannot agree on the worth of Nirah. Bedford and Kempston MP Patrick Hall has contributed £500 from his own pocket. Mr Hall wrote out a personal cheque to demonstrate his commitment to the project. Frank Branston, Bedford Mayor, has undetaken to match pound for pound up to £50,000.
But Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid Beds, said:
“I hope that the director of Nirah featured in last week's photograph taking the cheque from the pensioner explained that Nirah was in a serious amount of debt – and that only weeks ago they were hours away from calling in the receivers.
“Their creditors could wind up Nirah at any moment. If and when they do the creditors will probably have the first call on the £50. What kind of organisation is it that wants to develop a £375 million project, which has already had £3 million of council tax money, goes to a pensioner's house and takes £50? That photograph will come back to haunt Peter May.”
Such comments coming from someone who was recently described as a "loose cannon" by someone in the recent public meeting on Nirah (to huge, sustained applause) can hardly help the cause of Nirah. Perhaps she prefers that the site remains an unsightly one. She omits to mention that the problem is that the Bedfordshire County Council made a promise it has apparently failed to carry out.
Nirah Chairman Peter May said:
“Becoming a founder member is not a decision we expect people to take lightly – we want them to consider carefully before deciding if they can afford to help – but the tide of support for Nirah is rising as people grasp the fact that this magnificent project could be lost to Bedfordshire.”
Anyone who is interested in taking part in the fundraising event can write to Ken Lynch at 4 Pyms Way, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 1DD.
School structure
The Times&Citizen reports that
Bedford and Kempston MP Patrick Hall has accused the county council of bowing to pressure from a "handful of people" in voting to keep the three-tier schools system.
Two weeks ago Bedfordshire had seemed poised to ditch its set-up of lower, middle and upper schools in favour of a two-tier arrangement of primaries, for four to 11-year-olds, and secondary schools, for 11 to 19-year-olds.
The move was touted by the county's Conservative administration as a way of improving pupils' achievement levels, which are below the national average at GCSE.
However, a revolt by Tory backbench councillors scuppered the reorganisation, which could have seen middle schools closed and their land sold off to developers.
Mr Hall has now accused the county council of being swayed by parental opposition to change, which he said was confined to small parts of Bedfordshire.
He said:
"The campaign seems to have been concentrated in Mid Beds and South Beds and around half-a-dozen of the best performing middle schools. But the rest of the county is nowhere near the same.
"It's quite wrong to have taken a decision based on the activities and views of a handful of people. What about the rest?
"There hasn't been a tidal wave against change, and it was the job of the county to take a balanced view. It hasn't."
Bedfordshire adopted the three-tier system around 30 years ago, in part to allow children to be taught in schools without widely-varying ages, and to avoid having very large secondary schools.
But the arrangement has been abandoned almost everywhere else, and now only Bedfordshire and the Isle of Wight have three tiers throughout their areas.
The county had seemed about to follow suit, with Conservative leader Coun Madeline Russell arguing it would help boost standards and ensure the right system was in place before new schools are built to cope with housing growth.
Her backbenchers would not play ball however, and the switch was voted down at a county council meeting, where parents fighting to keep three tiers had packed the public gallery.
Instead, it was decided to draw up an 'action plan' to improve pupils' performance within the existing system.
Mr Hall said:
"I congratulate Madeline Russell for having the courage to put forward the reform that's needed, but for various reasons it wasn't delivered.
"This can't be the end of it. We can't leave things as they are because the current system is demonstrably failing our children."
Coun Stephen Male (Con, Flitwick West), who led the Tory opposition to changing to two tiers, justified keeping the status quo. He said:
"We have rejected a very complex and expensive move that has no substantial evidence to support it, and can now put our efforts into putting schools' performance first, which is what parents want."
So, we have an "action plan." If it is anything like some of the plans this awful County Council has hatched in the past, we are in for another expensive and incompetent exercise. If there was only one argument for getting rid of this County Council structure, this one is it!
Wishing you a good week
Robert