I AM shocked and non-plussed that the county council plan to build the new extension to Wolvercote Primary School, in First Turn, as close to the railway line as possible.

This line is due to be upgraded to take over 200 trains per day, travelling at speeds around 70mph, and yet the planners think placing a nursery within 15 metres of the rails is a sensible thing. Who in their right mind builds next to the hard shoulder of a motorway when they have a choice?

Calculations show that the vibrations, alone, will exceed what is deemed acceptable by the British Standards Institute, whose limits were set as a planning condition by the inspector and agreed, in writing, by the Secretary of State.

Worse still, a set of points is also planned next to this extension, which will increase noise and vibration still further, not to mention increase the risk of a high-speed derailment (something which has already happened within living memory).

Today’s letters

Once the county council make this mistake, the school children of Wolvercote – and their teachers – will suffer for it for a very, very long time.

There is still time, and plenty of ground within the school footprint, to build this extension far away from the railway track, which is what the planners for Islip Primary School had the recent sense to do.

Personally, I blame Deutsche Bahn for resisting the installation of any mitigation against excessive vibration: they would not be allowed to get away with it in Germany. Come on county. At least pretend to be human.

Keith Dancey, St Peters Road, Upper Wolvercote, Oxford

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