It came to my attention earlier in the year that the County Council had been deficient in supplying Adur parents of secondary school aged pupils, a place in a school from their top three selection.
Councillor Kevin Boram of the County Councillor and District Councillor, also a Shoreham Academy Governor brought the shocking reality to my attention and since then has assisted me in holding the County Council to account over the complete lack of foresight by the West Sussex County Council.
39 families within my constituency were not offered a place for their child in their top three selection and many were placed further away in Worthing. While I have no problem with the Worthing schools, for many this is an unreasonable commute and actually increases commuter traffic and carbon footprint. Of course we all want our children in the nearest school, therefore I have been extremely active in both the constituency and Parliament on getting this moving before the next September intake, and to avoid a future debacle.
I took my concerns to the Schools Minister, Baroness Barran MBE who led the inquiry into an independent report which is unfortunately a damning insight into the failures of the Council on securing secondary school places in Adur.
For those interested I have attached the report to this article.
