Five years on

Five years ago my ward colleague Nick Kilby, then Opposition spokesman on Education, delivered a stiff reminder to the Lib Dem administration about the need for school places, reminding them that they had earlier dismissed his demand for more places based on the known facts about a ‘baby boom’ currently under way in the Borough.

The latest ‘Voice’ totally untruthfully, alleges that ‘Kingston Conservatives have opposed investment in local primary schools across Kingston’.

This allegation was made in 2010 and at the Surbiton Hill bye-election in 2011. It was rebutted then as the link shows. But they’re at it again, following their usual practice of never letting a good, working fib die!

Also five or six years ago, Tudor Ward Conservative Councillor Dennis Doe was very actively campaigning for a new secondary school in North Kingston. At the time the Lib Dems seemed to be more concerned with the possible effect on Grey Court school in neighbouring Richmond (then Lib Dem controlled if my memory serves) than in answering the needs of North Kingston parents. Now they boast that ‘7 years after the extra children start their primary schooling’ they will ‘open a new secondary school in North Kingston next year.’

Better late than never – but it should have been – COULD have been – up and running now.