I AM writing regarding the possible closure of Nynehead C of E Primary School, the plan for which is at an early consultative stage and causing consternation in the local community. I do not know whether or not you have formulated any view about the closure of rural schools in general or this one in particular but in any event I feel that you should be appraised of local views on the subject.

Nynehead Primary School is a happy and well thought of little school, which forms an integral and valued part of the village fabric and community. The continuous loss of village facilities like schools, shop, pubs and even churches is destroying rural communities like Nynehead which have formed part of the British way of life for centuries. The trend is destroying our heritage.

At the local the transfer of Nynehead’s pupils to either Bradford on Tone or Oake will impose a considerable burden on Nyneheads’s parents for a number of reasons: The rural roads to both Bradford and Oake are winding, substandard and potentially dangerous.

Parents with cars will have to travel these roads four times a day delivering and collecting their children ie. 8 miles per day, 40 miles per week and 1600 miles minimum in the course of the school year. The cost in terms of fuel and car maintenance will be substantial and an added burden to families whose budgets are already overstretched. The difficulties of those families without cars and worried about the security of their children can only be conjectured.

This possible closure is by and large a car dependant solution and given the rising cost of fuel and the global shortage of oil, it is not sustainable in the long term. It will cause young families to think twice about living in Nynehead and accelerate further decline of the village.

The County Council in, seeking to save money on its education budget, is actually passing on the financial cost in part of the families on Nynehead. In reality, if this school is closed the social cost to the Nynehead community and to the rural way of life as a whole will be immeasurably greater.

CASSIE DAVIES Lawn Road, Staplegrove.