Carlton Primary School

• ON behalf of the group trying to save Carlton school, I wrote to Cllr Angela Mason, the cabinet member for education, asking for council involvement in a ballot of Carlton parents.

This was important as fewer than 20 parents, not all even from the school, had responded to the council’s closure proposals.

After a reminder, I received a reply with an email attachment in a format I could not open. Her response, when I finally got a readable copy, was a refusal to take part in any such ballot.

I then reminded the council that an estimated 25 per cent of Carlton school families did not have full email access. As well as me!

This is a factor not fully acknowledged in their new cabinet paper for December 16 recommending closure of Carlton as a legal entity.

Given my own partial internet exclusion, I asked for a copy of the council staff guidance on internet communication. I was told that this could only be obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

This follows the council’s repeated failure to provide any financial information whatsoever on the cost of Carlton’s closure.

Yet the cabinet paper claims that the principal reason for this is financial. Our six local councillors, apparently, remain muted. Or gagged?

MICK FARRANT,
NW5