Lateral Thinking

Letters in this week's Free Press and last consider the folly of moving both Rhos Street and Penbarras to a new site at Glasdir. Correspondents wish to see Rhos Street stay put and expand onto the adjacent Penbarras site. This they claim will reduce car travel.

Time was when head teachers got very uppity about contacting them directly by email. They said that they already had enough communications and work without adding to expectation of a quick response by email

And if pupils at the new Rhos Street school will need to take to their parents' cars, those from the Ysgol Borthyn catchment won't. Suddenly, Borthyn will have competition on the doorstep, within easy walking distance of the existing school and the estates of Llanfwrog Urban. The lure of a new, purpose built, 21st century school could put paid to Borthyn.

That much we've already considered on this post. But what about this as a new, lateral, idea:

• Close both Rhos Street and Borthyn and open a single English-medium primary at Glasdir

• Allow Penbarras to stay put and expand onto the Rhos Street site rather than the other way round. Indeed, demolish Rhos Street and rebuild on the site for Penbarras, if necessary housing Penbarras temporarily in the redundant Borthyn during the process

• Once fully redundant, sell the Borthyn site for social housing.

The result? Two schools rather than three, with one fewer head teacher and reduced overall overheads. Borthyn as the more open site could then terminate as housing much more easily than were both Rhos Street and Penbarras to vacate. Rhos Street parents will still have to get their children to the new site but they'd have to do that anyway under the current proposals.

And while we're about it, now that the community hospital seems to have more of a future, this, too, could move to Glasdir, releasing land that would then make the schools-cum-hospital site very attractive for housing.