In its 1997 Election Manifesto, the Labour Party announced "Labour
will never force the abolition of good schools." Parents and teachers
could have been forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief that
stability was about to be given to schools and that the education of
children was about to be restored to its rightful place in society.

Enter Labour-controlled Halton Borough Council, covering the towns of
Runcorn and Widnes on opposite sides of the River Mersey.
In 1999, it was decided to close down and merge several schools in
Runcorn including a secondary school. There followed a period of so-
called consultation involving public meetings addressed by the
Director of Education and the Chief of the Education Directorate. It
soon became clear that this was a `done deal' and that any
consultation was nothing more than window dressing. Demonstrations,
including blocking the Mayors car with a huge sign and presenting him
a petition came to nothing.

Two secondary schools, Norton Priory and Brookvale were merged, staff
being presented with a blank envelope containing a note informing
them they were to attend a job interview the following day. Almost
the entire Maths department found other employment and several staff
took early retirement. Despite the council mantra that the closures
were about raising standards and not saving money, the new school,
Halton High, was a disaster. It was too small and millions of pounds
had to be spent extending existing buildings, the council appointed
head had to be removed and the school was placed in Special Measures.
Staff morale and parental confidence plummeted and the school was
only saved by the dedication of staff and determination of pupils and
parents. There is a new regime at the school, but the very active
and large PTA has disbanded and it is almost impossible to recruit
and retain parent governors. Parental involvement is treated with
suspicion. It is Blair's Britain in microcosm where statistics are
everything and content nothing.

Given this recent experience of an enforced amalgamation, it is easy
to imagine the shock teachers, pupils and parents felt when they
discovered from a local free newspaper website that further closures
and amalgamations were in the pipeline.

The new proposals involve amalgamating The Grange and The Heath
secondary schools (or `federating' them in council speak
as `amalgamation' conjures up memories of the dismal Halton High
School experience) in Runcorn, and amalgamating Wade Deacon and
Fairfield secondary schools in Widnes. St Chad's Roman Catholic
secondary school will become a joint Roman Catholic – Anglican School
in Runcorn as the birth-rate is falling among Roman Catholics and
those Anglican families who wish to have their children educated in a
denominational environment send them to Chester.

The unfortunate Halton High School is to be razed to the ground and
rebuilt as a Specialist Academy. There is some craftiness in this
proposal as parents on the nearby well to do area of Sandymoor are
reluctant to send their children to the working class area of
Murdishaw where the school is currently situated. Instead, they send
their children to Bridgewater School in Warrington. Building a
specialist academy nearer to Sandymoor would encourage those pupils
to be educated within Halton and at the same time local statistics
for five A-C grades no harm at all.

All of this will involve hundreds of pupils travelling about both
towns on what is an inadequate bus system. Runcorn has a pioneering
busway which encircles the town in a huge figure-of-8. The original
idea was that no one should be more than a few minutes walk from a
bus stop and a frequent bus service would whisk commuters about the
town free from the interference of private cars and commercial
vehicles. Needless to say the planners did not foresee Tory bus
deregulation and each evening the busway is virtually deserted. What
parent wishes their child to have to wait in the gloom of a November
evening for a bus which may or may not turn up?

At a recent consultation meeting it became clear that permission for
the joint faith school had not been sought from the diocese and
councillors were reluctant to say where the new academy would be
sited. Staff felt LEA representatives were "evasive and ill-informed"
and that these proposals were a "fait accompli" decided months ago by
councillors mesmerised by the £80 – 100,000 million offered by the
Government to push ahead with the plan. Most people believe the prime
building land left vacant at The Grange and Fairfield also helped
focus the minds of Labour councillors.

Not content with lumbering young people with a mountain of debt for
having the temerity to attend university, Alan Johnson now wishes to
cause as much disruption to their secondary education as possible.
Blairite puppet Johnson is rapidly becoming as unpopular with
teachers and students as he was with the postal workers he regularly
sold out in his previous existence as right-wing General Secretary of
the CWU.

The population of Widnes and Runcorn should unite to stop these
closures and not fall into the same trap of 1999-2000 and
think "thank goodness it's not our school which is affected!" They
must put down a clear marker to Halton Borough Council on this issue
not least because early in 2008 a review of primary schools within
the borough is due to take place, the outcome of which will see more
schools closed with more teachers looking for jobs outside of the
borough and more anxiety for parents. They must pressurise Labour
councillors (especially those who had their own children educated
outside the borough while passing resolutions to close down local
schools) and both Labour Members of Parliament, Derek Twigg, Halton
and Mike Hall, Weaver Vale.