HAVING read the letter dated September 16 from Graham Ripley, Chair of the Board of Governors, Gloucestershire College, on the Forest of Dean planning website, I see that there is absolutely no case for building a new college on the valuable wildlife site that is the proposed Cinderford Northern Quarter.

If there was a valid case, surely the Board of Governors would have been the ones to clearly state it and Mr Ripley makes no attempt to do so.

The letter is empty of information or arguments in support of any of his claims. Most importantly, he does not explain what it is about this particular site that makes it the only possible one to provide the facilities he says are necessary.

Although Mr Ripley states that a 15 per cent increase in enrolments can be expected by providing a new building, his comparison between Gloucester and Cinderford is not appropriate because they are very different places with different transport provisions and catchment areas.

The Gloucester campus is within walking distance of the centre of Gloucester whereas the Northern Quarter site itself and the locality have little to attract young people.

Mr Ripley says the new-build will reduce travel time for staff and students – is he saying that all the staff and students live in Cinderford? It would be strange if the college staff have not located themselves conveniently to their current place of employment.

As a Cinderford resident I keep hearing that the "coal money" means that the Cinderford Northern Quarter site is the only possible location for the continuance of a college in the Forest, however there is no evidence of this that I can find.

Cllr Patrick Molyneux's answer to a public question at full council on July 17 2014 states that the new college facility is estimated at £15million and that the 'college will finance the majority of the college development with £5million grant assistance from the Skills Funding Agency'. 

Mr Ripley claims that the new-build is expected to lead to savings of £200,000 per year, but if you do the sums it will take 75 years to pay off the development costs (assuming that building costs don't escalate, which, bearing in mind the proposed site, is a big assumption).

Has any attempt been made to evaluate the potential for improvement of the existing college or the existing site? Have solutions to any Disability Discrimination Act "concerns," been conscientiously sought?

Why has the poor insulation that Mr Ripley tells us is causing the high running costs of the existing building not been replaced – there are insulation products to suit all types of building nowadays so I'm sure a technical solution is available if the governors were at all interested in maintaining the existing buildings. 

All this money to be spent and a wildlife habitat destroyed just because the governors fancy a new lakeside building.

Plus the cost of the new spine road to serve the new college – and don't forget that the Forest of Dean District Council has approved a loan to cover a third of the cost of the road which will be used in the case that the spine road itself is built but high development costs prevent building on the rest of the site and therefore no 'developer contributions' are forthcoming to pay the final third.

Mr Ripley says that "Gloucestershire College has done everything possible to deliver the new campus at the Northern Quarter Cinderford" but he does not actually tell us about anything they have done to "deliver" it except the neglect of the existing college buildings! Underneath all the rhetoric it seems to me that they've made up their minds to have a new college in a pretty location and don't care about the financial or ecological cost in getting it.

– Sid Phelps, Forest of Dean Green Party.