Cllr Sawyer's statement on ending of BSF funding

"We are extremely disappointed with the decision to cancel the Building Schools for the Future Programme (BSF). The programme represented a once-in-a-generation opportunity for vast investment to transform schooling in Bedford Borough, and it is obviously a major blow that the programme has been brought to an end before that investment was made.

"I am furious on behalf of local taxpayers over the £486,000 we have been forced to spend on the project to date due to the bureaucratic arrangements of BSF. We told both the previous government and the new government that BSF was overly bureaucratic and wasteful and could be done much more cheaply.

"The decision taken by the Full Council on 16th November 2009 to pursue a comprehensive programme of restructuring to a two-tier system was dependent on the receipt of BSF funding. Full Council's decision to pursue that programme as proposed does not stand, therefore, but we will not simply shrug our shoulders and accept the current situation, in which there is real scope for improvement.

"We will work on further plans to achieve the transformation of education in Bedford Borough and the improvement in standards which is needed and which we all want to see.

"The underlying fact is that Bedford Borough's schools need investment as part of efforts to raise standards. We will fight tooth and nail for that investment for current and future generations of children and young people in Bedford Borough, and we look forward to the chance to make the case for the Borough as part of the Government's new review of capital investment in schools."