I don't know how many times this needs repeating but I will say it yet again. It was not, I repeat not, parents from Queen's Park, Hanover or anywhere else for that matter who suggested the nodal system for Blatchington Mill and Dorothy Stringer schools.

It was the cross-party working group, comprising of councillors from the Labour, Green, Conservative and Lib Dem political parties, who suggested the idea.

I have stated before but I will say it again, the area which has no effective choice about secondary schooling starts in Whitehawk to the east and continues along the coastal/inner city area to the Seven Dials and just beyond. A substantial minority of parents are thus adversely affected by this current, home-to-school-walking-distance policy.

How does Mr Paul Fellingham know parents in Whitehawk and Moulsecoomb "have accepted the system"?

Given that the whole issue is to be revisited in the coming 12 months, I sincerely hope a fair and equitable solution can be found and that silence on the matter from certain parts of the city is not taken as acquiescence to the status quo.

Silence can be due to all sorts of things and perhaps when the next consultation exercise takes place, those conducting the consultation can take that into account.

Personally, I would love a much more radical solution to this present inequity. Alas, I fear all those parents who "voted" against the nodal proposals would do exactly the same thing the next time around, whatever is proposed, because in order for there to be a degree of equity in the admissions system, they must by necessity lose some of their current excess of choice.

I'll just have to hope the Children, Families and Schools Committee remembers a statutory consultation is not a referendum.

-Lynne Nicholls, Brighton