I was quite surprised to read the article about another free secondary school to be opened in the very near future, although it hasn’t a site.

As a parent of such aged children I would be quite confused by the announcements of the last few weeks.

Firstly, there was a group trying to set up an all through (4-18) free school in North Swindon and then a sixth form college also said it wanted to do the same, so there were two.

A few days later and these two groups decide to merge to produce a 4-18 school without a site and so there was one.

No sooner was the ink dry on this and the body decides that it wants the proposed school to be 11-18 only and in a letter to your paper they say, ‘it will be for the department of education who decide whether the proposal is suitable.’ However, the letter also states that a full through school, presumably 4-18, hasn’t been ruled out, so is that 1 ½?

If this hasn’t muddied the waters enough, the same edition of your paper also carries an article about a group of educational administrators from Bristol wanting to set up a faith school somewhere local if they can find a site, as they ‘have no representation at secondary level in the town’.

This group also thinks it is a bad idea if all schools have the same provider. So now there are two new schools proposed, neither with a site.

Maybe other faiths will now decide for similar reasons that they too want a school in the town. How many schools are correct?

All of this just shows to me how important it is to have a local democratically elected education authority.

After all, we the taxpayers will have to pay for these institutions. While the MP for North Swindon may want choice in schools, this comes at a cost and the need to be balanced.

In response to a recent letter, it isn’t the institutions I’m against, just the lack of public accountability.

At least Mrs Thatcher’s government gave the parents the ability to say no to becoming grant maintained (opting out). The present Tory government denies parents any say in the fate of their children’s school.

In 20 years time when such schools are half empty, we will probably read letters of protest from parents as they want to close a school.

Unfortunately, not being under the control of the local council, parents will have no say, which brings us back to the start, as we have no say in the setting up of schools either.

Bob Pixton, Abney Moor, Swindon