MR Wellburn's letter about the consultation over the future of secondary education in the West Side of York (December 8) implies that the local education authority is not responding to alternative proposals for solving the problem of declining pupil numbers and claims that his letters are going unanswered.

Mr Wellburn has received a reply to his letter even though I would not normally expect to respond in detail to every letter received as part of a consultation.

Furthermore, at the public meetings, I committed the education authority to a full analysis of any alternative schemes proposed either on the response forms or at the consultation meetings themselves.

This will form part of the report to the council executive in the new year when councillors will be asked to decide what should happen next.

For the time being, I should simply comment that if there had been any easy solutions to the problem, we would have included them in the initial consultation document.

Patrick Scott,

Director of education and leisure,

City of York Council,

Mill House,

North Street, York.

Updated: 12:29 Wednesday, December 10, 2003