When planning permission was granted for the 9,400 houses on the Brewery Farm green land on the outskirts of Dullbridge, the developers promised to build a new school on the site to help ease the application through the planning process.
As the houses on the site began to spring up faster than a really fast thing, the developers reached out to the All-New-Yet-Unimproved Somerset Cuonty Council to discuss plans for the community asset.
ANYUSSC, mindful that any school built on the site would require kitting out internally with desks and staff, as well as ongoing maintenance costs, all to be taken from a pot provided by central government and based on pupil numbers, decided to look at the issue in depth to ascertain if anticipated pupil numbers could be accommodated at other schools in the area.
Somewhat unsurprisingly ANYUSCC concluded that new pupils could be squeezed into other local schools, which means that the funding per pupil can be spread around the existing schools, rather than having to go into a new one.
The mainly ex-Teacher BeFuddled Party contingent on Smalltown and Dullbridge were incensed, with Headmistress, Mayor and Dictator Cllr Kelsey Dullard saying “Educashun is good and we should support our colleagues in the teaching profession who may need a job. I’d also like to be able to add another school to my list of schools I can visit throughout the year in my pursuit of photo opportunities.”
The Smalltown Administration Guru (SAG), Katie Global, was instructed to send a strongly-worded letter to the education department at ANYUSSC, detailing Dictator Dullard’s displeasure and asking them to reconsider the matter.
Completely unfazed by the thought of Dictator Dullard on the war path, Bill Lemoncurd, Head of Educashun at ANYUSCC agreed to meet with Dictator Dullard and talked her through the reams of data compiled to support the notion that a new school is unnecessary.
At the most recent SaD Town Council Full Council meeting, Dictator Dullard told Councillors that, although she was “deeply disappointed, the figures do show that there is no need for a new school. I suggest that we ask ANYUSSC to review this again every year for the next 10-15 years, or until such time that they give in and build us a school.”
Meanwhile, residents of Dullbridge are more concerned by the lack of doctors and dentists locally. The build of a new GP surgery had been planned by the developers of the Islandairport plot, in a suggestion made to help secure planning permission to build a further 940 houses on land between Dullbridge and the M94. However, since planning permission was granted and work commenced on the site there has been a deathly silence as regards the new surgery. Strangely SaD Town Councillors have also been silent on the subject.