I AM writing on behalf of the Mount Vale Community, a group set up to preserve the Mount School playing field in its entirety and to help the school to thrive.

We believe that the best chance the school has of delivering high quality education to girls is if it applies to the Department for Education to become a Free School.

If the Mount School were to apply for Free School status it would be able to retain its Quaker ethos, it would still be for girls, it would still have a boarding element and it would still have its charitable status.

What would change is that all places at the school would be Government-funded and the school would have to fill any spare places it had with local girls.

I have written to the school governors and proposed this strategy and they replied that they would sell the land first and then consider becoming a Free School.

Their approach is wrong because it is about a short term financial gain. Our strategy is proven because a number of other independent day and boarding schools have very successfully applied it and become sustainable.

It is concerning that City of York Council has a duty to secure additional school places and to bring forward proposals for Free Schools but does not appear to have considered this approach in this case.

I think the council, if planning permission were to be granted, would just have a short term interest in gaining a dozen more executive houses on a school playing field, without any regard for the longer term sustainability of the Mount School.

Murray Rose,

Towton Avenue, York