I wonder how many of your readers are aware of the outrageous situation outlined below?

I have lived in Tidenham all my life and I, and my siblings, went to Tutshill School. My son is almost four years old and due to start at infant school in September. We live less than two miles from this school and there is a bus which passes the end of our lane and takes the children to and from school.

My son has been refused a placement at Tutshill while, at an educated guess, up to a third of the new September intake will be from Chepstow, Wales.

My son was offered a place at a school five to six miles in the opposite direction which, as I have no transport of my own, I have been unable to accept. I entered the reconsideration process, but he was still not offered a place, while yet another child from Chepstow was. I now have to go through the extremely stressful formal appeal procedure.

Some of the Chepstow children being offered places already have siblings at Tutshill school, fair enough, but most do not, and there are five to six schools in the Chepstow/Bulwark area for them to go to.

Now that these new children from Chepstow have been accepted at Tutshill, they will automatically be joined by their siblings in the future and so it goes on.

I am at a loss to understand why Gloucestershire Council is favouring children from another county/country over our own Gloucestershire children. What are we paying our exorbitant council tax to Gloucester for?

I understand that this ridiculous situation is arrived at by drawing a straight line from the child's address to the school. This allows children from Garden City and some of the new estates in Chepstow to appear closer than we are. Is there no-one in Gloucester who knows that there is a river in between?

Do your readers realise the extent to which they are actually paying to educate the children from Wales whose council tax, incidentally, is much lower than ours?

– Name and address supplied.