Is there a plot to eliminate the Varndean campus? The signs are ominous.

The planning application to sell off three acres of the Varndean Sixth Form College's playing fields to provide funds for the expansion of the college (September 29) is bad but the total picture is still worse.

There is also a planning application to expand Varndean School. Dorothy Stringer School is preparing to apply for permission to expand towards Loder Road.

Both these schemes will be PFI schemes with outside commercial "partners" providing the cash and the terms about what they can do outside school hours and term-time with the new facilities.

It could get worse yet. The proposed merger of the two Balfour schools will reduce their combined intake.

Yet the pressure to get children into this desirable set of primary schools will increase, not ebb.

So how long will it be before there is an expansion plan for this school too?

The logical conclusion is the total development of this convenient open area next to four of Brighton's most successful schools and colleges, from green oasis to concrete jungle, as it is eaten away bit by bit to provide for education for children from further and further away from the area.

-David Sayers, Friar Road, Brighton