John Rook, headteacher of Southborough School, is understandably "disappointed, frustrated and annoyed" by the recent decision by the council committee to reject the school's application to change its status.

He is not the only one after the widespread and extensive consultation process showed Southborough's pupils, staff, parents and prospective parents were overwhelmingly in favour of the move to voluntary aid status as a church school.

They will also be wondering how the school organisation committee turned down the well argued application. They and the general public have a right to know.

As a supporter of the application, I was present at the meeting and saw how the vote went.

The committee is made up of five membership groups, each with a vote on the application.

While the deliberations of each group were held in camera, ex-Lib Dem mayor Don Jordan explicitly spoke against the proposal publically, stating he did not believe a strong case had been made or that Southborough would benefit from the move. He feared the impact on Beverley School would be detrimental.

The LEA group which he sat on was dominated by Lib Dem councillors Martin Blakebrough, Celia Osborne and himself. The lone Tory was Kevin Davis. The group failed to agree and abstained during the vote.

However, the schools group, made up of four governors from other schools, rejected the proposal by a majority decision.

After the vote, spokesperson David Ryder-Mills, who stood as a Lib Dem candidate in the Kingston elections last year on the ticket of local schools for local children, said it was a difficult decision but they felt more data must be made available about the impact of the move.

Both the Church of England group and the Roman Catholic group voted in favour of the application.

Inexplicably, the learning and skills council group was not represented at this important meeting.

This is an extraordinary decision for the committee to have made in the light of the clear demand from local parents.

As only four out of six of the members of the school group attended the meeting and Mike Taylor (governor of Tiffin School) spoke publicly in favour of the application, I conclude the other three members present John Heamon, Matthew Rees and David Ryder-Mills scuppered the proposal.

If this was the case, they ignored the wishes of local parents.

David Ryder-Mills is himself a governor of a church primary school in New Malden so why would he be against the proposal for a further church secondary school?

Kingston parents in this part of the borough have expressed a clear wish to have greater choice at secondary level education.

This is being denied and the whole proposal has now been put in jeopardy by the bizarre decision of three governors who are not connected with Southborough School.

Peter Osborne, as chairman of Southborough governors, and his fellow governors are deeply disappointed after all their hard work.

Mr Osborne has resigned in protest.

This is understandable but it is Messers Heamon, Rees and Ryder-Mills who should resign their membership of the school organisation committee as well as their own school governorships and admit their vote was wrong.

The decision of the council committee did not reflect the democratic wish of those consulted and I only hope the independent schools adjudicator will give the green light to the scheme which will make a good school and even better one.

Peter Flower

Chairman of Kingston and Surbiton Christian People's Alliance

Poplar Grove

New Malden

May 30, 2003 10:00