Dear Cllr Cliff Morris, I have read with great interest your plans entitled Bolton, Our Vision 2007-2017 and The Bolton Plan 2007-10.

However, allow me as a former vice-chairman of school governors and a Second World War Royal Navy veteran to beg you not to rush into headlong disaster on the subject of school academies.

You must surely appreciate that an academy is a very precise place of learning, such as a military, naval, music, or art academy. Academies are for a very exact, specialised type of teaching by expects and never intended for failing state schools. This includes Withins School or any other school in England.

One needs not an high IQ to understand that by simply changing the name of Withins School to an academy cannot ever change the ethos of that school, whether failing or not.

I have had some good experience of education systems in Europe, with Sweden now leading in this field. All have had superior systems over many years and none have been afflicted with our English political interference that we have suffered constantly through parliamentary bills, as if England had just discovered education.

In Europe, education is in the hands of qualified educational ministers and teachers. Even Scotland and Ireland, North and the Republic, are by far superior to our schools.

If you were to call Bolton School an academy then that would be a compliment. But can you imagine in years to come, all English schools calling themselves academies with little or no change in the standards of education, as will certainly be the case?

For example, a good 40 per cent of students now at Withins School and others will never achieve a high standard of education. You can apply the same to some 40 per cent of working class children in England today. Let’s be real about this.

The public will view this academy idea as simply a way of our Government and councils kicking their political educational football out into the public domain to save money and because they have failed.

I am now 84 and I know from a life’s experience that if you wish to have a good education in England then it can only be obtained in one of our many good independent and public schools. Whereas in Europe, the same education can be obtained in state schools for free, regardless of your social status.

Need I say more — other than Cllr Morris, leader of the council, think carefully before your council commits its education to suffer the awful consequences of a foolish decision that will join the many other major educational disasters of governments, past and present.

You lead Bolton Council. Let history record that you took the right decision. Your vision for Bolton?

Robert M Goodman, Red Bridge, Bolton