I AM writing in response to the article on Wroughton Infants School which appeared in the Evening Advertiser on October 11.

Wroughton is in the area covered by Swindon Borough Council and Wroughton Infants is one of the Swindon family of schools. Although it would be nice to think that Wiltshire County Council would be willing to make capital investment in our schools, this seems rather unlikely.

A £3.5m proposal to rebuild Wroughton Infants was submitted to last year's round of the New Deal for Schools. Unfortunately, this bid was not successful.

Wroughton Infants is one of a number of schools in Swindon needing upgrading.

The council considers projects on their merits and has to balance between the limited amount of money that is available for such schemes and the priority they can be given.

Since Swindon became a unitary authority, with support from the Labour Government we have made a good start on clearing the backlog of repairs to our schools which we inherited from Wiltshire. For example, we have started the process of rebuilding Lethbridge Primary School and upgrading Liden and also the Chalet School.

Given the state of the building stock we inherited, there is still unfortunately a long way to go but we are committed to improving the learning environment in all Swindon schools that require it. In this year alone the council is spending £12.6m on capital improvements in our schools.

MIKE LUSTY

Director of Education and Community

Swindon Borough Council