Letter: Villages need more than babies

Sir: We in Napton do not triumph over the success of our battle to retain a village school ('Baby-boom village mothers win their battle of the bulge', report 7 October). Decisions taken over education in Warwickshire are an example of blinkered thinking in local and national governmental planning.

Publication of closure plans 'for consultation' produces rivalry and bitterness between adjacent village localities. Many hours of campaigning and community resources have been directed into making a case for our school. The consequence is that our friends in Priors Marston lose out and may blame us.

The long-term social effects of a school closure are not just educational. Young parents will not come into a village where four-year-olds have to be bussed out daily. The population will become childless and completely unbalanced. Is it government policy to destroy the traditional English village?

This debate should be widened to take into account the closure of post offices and non-viability of village shops due to the construction of monstrous remote supermarkets and new roads. The common threads throughout all of these planning decisions are the gradual destruction of a viable community and the forced dependence of the ageing rural population on the use of the motor car.

Yours faithfully,

ALAN SMITH

Napton, Warwickshire

7 October