I write in reply to the letter by Ms McCaffery, Labour councillor for Preston Park and deputy chair on the Children, Families and Schools (CF&S) Committee.
It is not only the residents of Hanover and Queen's Park who are excluded from access to secondary schools.
All the inner city areas of Brighton and Hove are affected - Central Hove, Goldsmid, East Brighton, Brunswick, Wish, Westbourne, Regency and North Laine ward areas.
As we all live at least 2.5km away from our nearest secondary school, using distance criteria our children can no longer be assured to obtain a place at our nearest schools.
We are assigned what is "leftover" after the residents in the more affluent suburbs choose from the two or three secondary schools clustered there.
It is not a question of wanting access to the "best" schools, we just want access to our nearest schools.
Dorothy Stringer and Vardean are not equidistant - Vardean is around 200m further north than Dorothy Stringer, as measured by the school admission team.
Which school is "best" or "popular" has no relevance to this principle of access to our nearest school, other than making access to our nearest schools extremely unlikely.
The Review Panel 2002 recommended criteria of "priority areas". The public consultation of 2004 showed 51 per cent wanted to keep the existing system and only 34 per cent wanted a geographical criterion.
The geographical criteria were chosen by the CF&S Committee on the grounds the consultation was "numerically poor" and was a consultation not a referendum.
In the recent consultation (2005), 61 per cent wanted to keep the existing distance criteria and 25 per cent wanted the working party's recommended nodal system.
The CF&S Committee (Jan 2006) concluded the consultation was a referendum, which gave a "mandate to keep the distance criteria".
Ms McCaffery seems to have little or no understanding of the issues using a distance criterion when all the secondary schools are clustered in the suburbs.
It would surely be in the interest of the whole city if she resigned from the CF&S and concentrated on her Preston Park Ward.
This is something she excels at, given the distance criterion is of particular benefit to her ward.
-S Smith, Norfolk Terrace, Brighton
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