The Conservative administration at County Hall voted this week to press ahead with plans to close Oxford School and put an academy in its place.

In doing so it ignored the 78 per cent of respondents to the consultation who disagreed with the plans.

The decision is deeply flawed. Firstly, the academy programme put forward by the Tory/Liberal Democrat Government is very different to Labour’s.

Labour’s academies were targeted at deprived areas and accompanied by substantial capital investment in new buildings and facilities.

The Tory/Lib Dem academies won’t get that investment and so the most welcome feature has disappeared.

Secondly, the consultation process has been hurried through without proper time for everyone involved to scrutinise the plans and have their say.

Thirdly, an opportunity has been missed to take a deeper look at the provision of secondary education in the city.

Instead of rushing down the new Government’s academy route, the county council should have looked more closely at how secondary schools in Oxford are organised and how they might better work together, and to explore other options which were dismissed out of hand.

The real reason for the rush to an academy could be glimpsed in Tuesday’s cabinet meeting when Tory councillors said competition – not investment – was the main attraction of an academy, some even drawing parallels with competition between private companies.

It is a worrying insight into the Tory approach to state education.

The people who made this decision do not represent anybody in Oxford, which returns no Tory councillors.

But it is the children of the city who now face uncertain times because of the haste in pressing ahead with an academy proposal that offers no investment in their future.

Cllr Saj Malik Labour, East Oxford Cllr Richard Stevens Labour & Co-operative, Leys & Lye Cllr John Tanner Labour, Isis Cllr Sarah Hutchinson Labour, Cowley & Littlemore