Northstowe Schools

I attended a meeting of the County's Cabinet this morning to hear the outcome of the competition for the first primary school and the secondary school. There were two bidders for the primary school - Swavesey Village College and The Diocese. My own preference was for a local authority run community school, but this was not possible. There were four bidders for the secondary school - including a potentially very exciting bid from a Swedish company, that runs schools in Sweden. I had previously been to two workshops which had examined all the bids in depth, as well as speaking to both Gordon Jeyes, the Deputy Chief Executive and Adrian Loades, the Director of Planning about the bids. The outcome was that cabinet was recommended to approve the Diocesan bid for the primary school and the Swavesey Village College bid for the secondary school; I spoke in support of the recommendation as I think it will provide for the best education at the start of the new community. The work in building these schools - the community as well as the fabric will now start in earnest.

As I said this morning at cabinet - only another 5 primary schools to go!