Lack of Access, King's School, Pontefract, West Yorkshire

The King's School Pontefract is bounded by housing but has a South Eastern entrance onto Ackworth Road and a frontage to the north onto Mill Hill Lane. A lovely broad road (In Red on the arial picture below) sweeps up through the grounds to the South side of the school, the buildings of which have been extended.

The King's School from the air showing the closed route in red (400m) and the alternative routes, by very busy road (olive, 650 m) or by quieter streets (Yellow, 1,200m)

Now I know that allowing open access through school grounds is just going to open the floodgates for hoards of Romanian Child Rapists to be given council accommodation and steal our jobs, so just to make sure that no short-cut was possible a nice high spiky topped fence has been built to make the seal complete – Ah we can all sleep easy now.

King's School Eastern boundary from Mill Hill Lane, showing fencing (Red and Blue).

The questions I would ask are

1. If safety is a concern, why are cars allowed on the school grounds at the same time that pupils will be walking around?
2. The school is a public thing, and given that, has any thought been given to the public interest of allowing access through the school and saving alternative, much longer and more hazardous journeys?

If security is a concern with a little imagination these worries might be assuaged.

On any given school day swathes of the King's School are given over to staff parking. A slice of the East side of the school was sold off to developers, which afforded an ideal opportunity to review paths, A footpath to the King's School was stolen several years ago and another one used by hundreds of pupils was first made impassable and then built upon only the last couple of years.

If a body professes to endorse general social welfare they should endeavour to bring about improvements, let alone make things worse. If they don't they should at least be held up for not doing so.