Sir – With respect to Prof Glenn Patrick’s comments (Letters, June 24) I would agree that new school labs are a good thing but being at the cutting edge is far more important for his work in particle physics than it was for the fair number of years I spent teaching physics at secondary level at King Alfred’s.

However, my main point was that the necessity for these new labs on the centre site should not be at the expense of Wantage’s community or King Alfred’s pupils.

Successive governments have sold off large numbers of school playing fields that have generally gone to housing developments.

Given the need to maximise pupils physical activities to counteract the growing obesity problem, I would urge caution in selling the east site.

The amalgamation of the three schools in Wantage was achieved with the threat of falling numbers of pupils, which turned out to be incorrect. That three sites are difficult to run as a single entity could have been predicted.

However, the current and future parents of pupils of King Alfred’s school would do well to scrutinise these plans to see if it really is in the interest of their children or just an easy way or raising the money for somebody’s grand plan.

Terry Randall
Grove Street
Wantage