The people who have commented on the cynical way in which the Labourled Brighton and Hove City Council has manipulated the voting for the school admissions proposals, are forgetting a few points.

Firstly the uneven distribution of secondary school places around the city is a situation which has been created by successive councils over many decades.

My father was at York Place Grammar School when it moved to Varndean in the Thirties. When I was of school age, the secondary modern schools, Fawcett and Margaret Hardy, occupied the buildings in York Place.

When these schools moved out to Patcham, the York Place buildings became part of Brighton Technical College, leaving a void for secondary education in the town centre, which was extended by turning Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School into a sixth form college. The closing of Stanley Deason/Comart/Marina High School extended that void into East Brighton.

Secondly, the perception that certain schools are better than others has been created by the publication of the notorious school league tables.

The pressure of demand for places at Dorothy Stringer has been stirred up largely by these documents. But aren't we losing sight of the fact that a school is a community of pupils, staff and governors and the league tables are merely a limited snapshot of that community at one point in time?

There is no magic residing in the buildings which guarantees children sent there will achieve wonderful things. They have to take the commitment, ability and resourcefulness with them. And arguably if they take those same virtues to another school, they can achieve just as much.

When there is a shortage of places at "good" schools, there is no fair way of deciding who shall have those places.

Taking away places from those who have them, to give to those who do not, does not result in fairness either, however many times the parents of the winning children assert that it does.

Ian James
Easthill Drive, Portslade