The incompetence of West Sussex Education Department and their failure to get their sums right on the demand for secondary school places in Adur has been compounded by their latest refusal to fund a bus service. Up to 50 pupils mostly from Swiss Gardens school in Shoreham are now faced with a trip to a school that none of them listed in their top choices and a request for a special bus link especially for the younger kids has now been refused.
It also comes ahead of the publication of a likely damning independent report in how the Education Department at County Hall got it so wrong in the first place, despite the warnings of the looming crisis from Councillor Kevin Boram, parents and I, and then has constantly been on the defensive with a refusal to communicate properly with my constituents. I remain determined that this needs to be sorted before West Shoreham parents potentially face an even bigger problem next year and we await the report findings to see how we take this forward to a real solution.
Kevin Boram and I also had a very constructive meeting with the director of the Sussex Integrated Care Board to get the plans for the development of the old Burrscroft site in Shoreham Town Centre back on track, hopefully with a state-of-the-art GP health centre at its heart. We will keep constituents posted but we all know the demand is there given the local developments.
It was good to catch up with the relatively new Friends of Buckingham Park on a wet Wednesday evening last week for the official unveiling of some very smart new nature boards provided by the Sussex Wildlife Trust. They are designed by the same person who produced similar boards for Shoreham Beach and many people will be surprised just how much there is to see in the park.
See you at Shoreham Farmer’s Market street surgery as usual on Saturday from 10.
