Yesterday representatives from Chale went to hand in a petition with over 2,000 signatures to Island MP, Andrew Turner, at the House of Commons, to protest at the proposed closure of Chale Primary School.

At the very tail end of last year we met up with the team of concerned residents who assembled to save Chale Primary School. They were taking a lunch break from their session of deciding the best way to try and tackle the issue at the local pub, The Wight Mouse Inn.

Talking to them, it was clear that there’s a major concern in the village about the loss of Chale Primary School.

They placed a serious question mark over the IW Councils approach to deciding to close the school, with one of them saying that he felt that they’d been given “no reasons for closing the school apart from financial convenience.”

He also questioned if their concerns had been listened to, feeling that the representations that were made by the people of Chale were not fully responded to by the council.

Their view was that only a blanket answer came back from the IW Council – that they could not justify keeping the school open as a one form entry school and that it was uneconomic to maintain.

Other concerns were raised about the actual process, feeling that it might fall outside the statutory guidance, thus potentially breaking the law. As one speaker put it, “It appears that they haven’t fulfilled all of the things they should have done.”

What are the expenses if the school closes?
The father of a child who has just started the school raised the question of the cost of closing the schools, “They know how much it costs to run the school, but I’ve written to them and they have no idea how much it will cost to close the school.”

He continued, “They’ve no idea how much the transport (to send children to another school) will cost. They’ve not costed it in.”

He felt that the local authority hadn’t thought it through, “They can’t even tell me which school my daughter will go to. I would suspect either Niton or Brighstone. Niton is already over-subscribed and Brighstone is something like a 14 mile round trip on a bus every day – for a 4-5 year old. It’s totally unacceptable.”

The Council’s point of view
VB put forward what we presumed might be a position of the council – Why put in time and effort into doing costings if they don’t know if the schools are definitely closing.

The response – How do you know it’s too expensive to run, if you don’t know the cost of the alternative (closing it)? You need a ball park figure. If it’s twice as expensive to close it, it’s a bit late to find out after you’ve closed it.

Preservation of the village
The major concern was that if the school was to close, Chale as a village would die, “Chale is still a village. We’ve got a village church, we’ve got a village school, we’ve got a village garage, we’ve got a village pub, we’ve got a shop with a cafe – It is still a complete entity.

“Once the school goes, the young people go and we’re left with retired people and holiday homes. The village is gone. It’s finished.”

Have a listen for yourself …

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