Muammar Al Khadafi

At a cost of close to £1000 a week a number of children unable to get places at schools in Portishead are being ferried by taxis to other North Somerset schools.

Children as young as six are being forced to make the 30 mile round trip to Clevedon after 24 pupils were unable to get a place at a school in Portishead.

It is understood that 14 of the children are now reliant on taxis, with the bill picked up by North Somerset Council. It is assumed that in the remaining 10 cases parents are having to ferry their children to schools up to 15 miles away.

Quoted by the Western Daily Press, one parent who has to drive her six year old daughter all the way to Clevedon after failing to secure a school place in Portishead said that "understand there are a lot of children in the town that we unable to get a school place this year......The council is predicting a further shortage of primary school places in Portishead over the coming years...."

North Somerset Councils own figures reveal that there will be an estimated shortage of 103 school places by 2015 for the Gordano and Pill cluster area.

Full Story - http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/North-Somerset-school-crisis-costing-1-000-week/story-12910935-detail/story.html

Faced with cutbacks totalling £47million over four years, money which could have been spent on securing a local education for our children, it's worth noting that we found close to that amount - £46.1million - to spend on foreign aid to Somalia in 2010/11.

All of these cutbacks, school shortages which have left councils footing the bill for taxi fares, and parents having to drive thirty miles a day just to get their children to school, need never have happened if those at the top who are holding the purse strings put our nation first.

Britain suffers, and our people are put last, as the foreign aid spending spree continues unchecked.