Martin backs families caught in admissions trap

5.18.44pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 27th Apr 2007

After a stressful few months, local MP Martin Horwood sees light at the end of the tunnel for at least some local families caught in Gloucestershire's schools admissions crisis. With Kingsmead School in Hester's Way facing closure and replacement by a new government-backed Academy, and all other local schools apparently full, 92 new entrants to secondary school across Cheltenham had been told to expect trips to Gloucester, Tewkesbury or Brockworth to get to schools far from friends and neighbourhoods. Meanwhile shrinking catchment areas for popular schools meant other families losing out and facing journeys to schools on the opposite side of town.

'Some Cheltenham parents and children have had a tough time recently but I think the local education authority understand there's a major problem and are working hard to resolve it'. Martin has held urgent talks with local heads, the authority and even with schools minister Lord Adonis in London and has lobbied hard for individual families.

Martin supports the new Academy but doesn't want it to have admissions rules so strict when it opens that some local children in the neighbourhood might not be able to go. And in the meantime he thinks fast-improving Kingsmead needs to be supported - not least to stop another admissions crisis next year and the next and the next.