WE write to alert readers to dates of forthcoming ward meetings about rebuilding three York primary schools: Hob Moor, Westfield (November 6), St Oswald's, Fulford (November 14) and St Barnabas', Beckfield (November 19).

This rebuilding is to be funded by the widely criticised Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

PFI means private companies initially fund rebuilding; then the council makes regular repayments for 25 years to use its own schools (in daytime and term time only). So "private finance" is really just deferred public spending.

But private involvement means paying higher interest rates and profit for shareholders. It means school buildings and some staff being controlled by companies whose priority is income, not education. Many PFI schools have been poorly designed. Repayments have exceeded projections, necessitating cuts elsewhere.

We can't blame our councillors for PFI, though we may wish they had clarified its central Catch 22. To get new schools the city council must apply for so-called private finance. To do this, it must submit a business case that presents 'private' finance as cheaper than undisguised public spending - whether it really is nor not.

The result? Tony Blair can proclaim PFI as 'best value', and use it to camouflage public spending. Private companies get a lucrative monopoly. Democratic control is undermined and York citizens will still be paying over the odds for these three schools when Tony Blair is 75!

We urge all concerned citizens to attend ward meetings, ask questions and press for undertakings on PFI. We also urge our council to arrange a meeting for all council taxpayers with MPs Hugh Bayley and John Grogan, whose party is responsible for PFI.

For more information contact: York PFI Watch, OPSA House, High Ousegate, York YO1 8ZZ, phone 647721; or you could visit www.yorkpfiwatch.org.uk

John Heawood and others,

Eastward Avenue,

Fulford, York.

Updated: 12:30 Wednesday, October 30, 2002