I was astonished to read Councillor Vanessa Brown saying the Greens have tried to “sabotage the Falmer Academy project with little support and no alternatives” (Letters, December 9). None of those things is really the case.

Let’s be clear: we Greens are entirely supportive of any work to improve our city’s schools, and our opposition to Falmer is based on this fact.

If Coun Brown thinks otherwise then I can only assume she has failed to understand our position.

Academies are a gamble.

Nearly a third of the 83 academies already up-and-running nationwide have been condemned as failing schools.

This is hardly a surprise since they tend to be run not by teachers but by entrepreneurs or religious organisations.

Of course, the new school at Falmer may be one of the better ones, but we just don’t know yet. That’s the nature of gambles.

We do know perfectly well though that the sterling work of the current head and staff has made Falmer High a fastimproving school already – and that the money needed to refurbuish the buildings could have come from the Government’s “building schools for the future” programme as early as next year without effectively privatising the school and leaving Moulsecoomb without a single council-run secondary school.

No sabotage or lack of alternatives there then.

And as for support, I suggest Coun Brown attends a Brighton Schools Not For Sale meeting or talks to some of the local parents, teachers and unionists who are deeply opposed to the whole notion.

She’ll find there are many stakeholders who are suspicious of this latest New Labour privatisation wheeze.

We all hope Falmer succeeds, just as we all hoped Comart would, but I wouldn’t bet the children of Moulsecoomb’s future on it.

Ben Duncan, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown and councillor for Queen’s Park, Brighton and Hove City Council