Priority is these pupils’ safety

Mar 6 2008

I am writing to express my concern with Advertiser reader J. McGhie’s letter about the preferential treatment pupils of St John the Baptist are receiving as result of their being decanted to Hamilton.

The writer is comparing this situation to a decantment several years ago which affected his/her child from one street in Hamilton to another. Not quite the same situation here, I have to say!

My five-year-old niece is part of this decantment. She now has to leave the house 30 minutes earlier in the morning and is being escorted to school with private transport by her parents and family to ensure that she arrives safely.

The 27-or-so people monitoring the crossing patrol are parents of children at the school, not people supplied by South Lanarkshire Council.

I cannot believe that someone who calls themselves a caring parent has views such as this.

The whole situation is a tragedy waiting to happen.

Can I just add that three weeks after the children have been decanted, no work has yet commenced at St John the Baptist.

I must also say I am disappointed that J. McGhie’s letter merited ‘Letter of the Week’ in the Hamilton Advertiser.

Alison Melrose, letter sent by e-mail.