Wednesday 19 May 2010

Stirrer? Moi?

Cornwall council cabinet member Mark Kaczmarek prompted a few smiles today when he gently suggested that "the media" (BBC Radio Cornwall) might have been "stirring it" while pursuing the story about capital funding for St Tudy school and the potential impact of this on Torpoint nursery and infants school.

I have to confess that the role of Torpoint school in the story turned out to be rather different to the one I had been expecting. Anyone reading the official report about St Tudy school, and noting the official concern about "serious risk" to Torpoint's £1.7million capital fund if the St Tudy project should proceed, might conclude that this was a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Only when I arrived at Torpoint did I discover that staff, governors and most parents didn't really want a new school anyway. They were mystified as to why it had taken four years for nothing to happen.

So when the facts change, so does the story and on Tuesday morning BBC Radio Cornwall listeners heard James Churchfield interview the vice chair of Torpoint governors, and the Cornwall council cabinet member for education Neil Burden, who agreed Torpoint had been a "red herring" and thought it ought not to have been in the official report about St Tudy at all.

Modesty (almost) prevents me from reporting that councillor Kaczmarek also paid tribute to the role of the media in explaining accurately the true situation. Cabinet members subsequently voted unanimously to progress the St Tudy project.

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