Last night Bury Council met in its first “Emergency Full Council” meetings for many years - certainly as long as I’ve been a Councillor. The Council was called by the Labour group on basis of ideas floated by the Conservative Administration on Bury Council to reduce the capacity of the soon to be built new Radcliffe Riverside School from 900 children to 600.

Liberal Democrats believe that full consultation with parents and the community must take place before any decision was made. Whist we wern’t able to support the Labour Party in suggesting that a decision for a 900 capacity school had to be made last night, I did propose an amendment on behalf of the Lib Dem Group guaranteeing that Radcliffe Riverside does get built, and that work starts straight away for the planned 2009 opening. Thankfully the Lib Dem proposal received support from all parties.

In Prestwich many of us have painful memories of the discussions when one of our local schools was threatened with closure a year ago (Prestwich Arts College on Heys Road). We said then that there should be a place in a Prestwich high school for every Prestwich child that wanted one, the same must be said for Radcliffe.

Tim