Guernsey Press

Virus creates space for Lisia opponents

IT’S AN awkward message. Especially for a committee which has spent much of the last two years extolling the virtues of buses.

Published

Hence two press releases from Education, Sport & Culture in two days.

For in the topsy-turvy world of Covid-19, bus travel is no longer the answer to the conundrum of how to get thousands of children to school on time. Social distancing cuts the capacity of buses and Education wants parents to avoid them.

Pupils must walk or cycle, just don’t come by bus if you can help it. Or car.

The subtext is that transport to schools is a hot potato for the committee in the ‘one school two sites’ battle.

Many residents believe that the roads around St Sampson’s (Victor Hugo) and Beaucamps (de Saumarez) will be clogged by traffic as hundreds of children come and go every day.

Buses were a big part of the solution. Almost all of CT Plus’s buses would be needed at full capacity, with pupils expected to stand.

It doesn’t fit well with social distancing.

Neither does car sharing, another solution that will be frowned upon for as long as the ‘new normal’ persists.

All that is left is ‘active travel’ – cycling and walking.

Opponents of the Lisia School may see this as another gap in the project’s armour, another reason to re-think the whole idea of fewer, bigger schools.

After the ‘pause and review’ requete they have reason to hope. Alongside transport, another objection to the plans to extend two of the high schools focused on the limited amount of space in corridors and communal areas.

Teachers, parents and pupils all questioned how it would be possible for 1,400 pupils to co-exist in schools where the space per student was to fall.

Those voices will now draw a new audience. With or without a vaccine, the advent of Covid-19 has heightened people’s awareness of disease transmission and proximity.

If it can be shown that the larger schools make it harder to keep pupils safe it might deal a fatal blow to the beleaguered project.