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Greg Mulholland-Working Hard For Leeds North WestMulholland slams Leeds City Council for lack of forward planning on school places
April 30, 2012 9:48 AM
Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Leeds North West, Greg Mulholland, has criticised Leeds City Council, following news that a number of local children have been refused places in one of Otley's five primary schools.
A notable number of local children have been refused places in primary schools in the Otley and have instead been offered places in schools a considerable distance from their local community.
Greg Mulholland has criticised Leeds City Council for a lack of forward planning and called on them to urgently deal with the problem to ensure that children from the town are placed in local schools.
Greg commented:
"There is understandable uproar in Otley that a notable number of local children have been refused places in primary schools in the town and have instead been offered places miles away. Parents are right to be furious and this shows a complete lack of forward planning by Leeds City Council.
"Otley is a distinct town with a distinct identity and it is completely unacceptable to expect children aged just four or five, to have to travel seven miles from Otley, when there are five primary schools in the town.
"The council must now come up with a solution to this, both to deal with the immediate problem but also to ensure this doesn't happen again. It also will worry people in the area that the Council has also just published a list of places where there could be housing development in the area, yet they can't even find places for local children as things stand, this shows a lack of joined up thinking.
"They urgently need to deal with this crisis now as people in Otley will simply not accept school places miles away and I will be campaigning alongside them until they get the local school places they should have".