EXTRA schools are on the cards for Ely as more and more families move to the district – but a row has broken out about where they should be situated. East Cambs District Council leader Fred Brown, and his fellow district councillors, unanimously agreed a

EXTRA schools are on the cards for Ely as more and more families move to the district - but a row has broken out about where they should be situated.

East Cambs District Council leader Fred Brown, and his fellow district councillors, unanimously agreed at a meeting last month that any new school should be built at Littleport - where there was a village college until the 1980s - but the county council suggested creating a new secondary school on land between Ely and Chettisham - the exact area district councillors had allocated for housing in the revived Ely Masterplan.

"As far as we [the district council] are concerned, we will be going ahead with our agenda," said Cllr Brown. "It's about being a community rather than doing something to undermine it.

"Kids from Littleport and Little Downham who are being bused to Ely would go to the Littleport school and that would create places for the ones that move to new housing in the city."

Cllr Brown added that there was talk at the council of "possibly providing low density, individual properties" on the site. "If you take the six or seven acres of a potential school site out of the equation you could have 20 or 30 houses there instead. It makes more sense to do that than to build a school where none of our members want it," he added.

Cllr Brown has proved vocal in the past about what he termed "asset-stripping" of Littleport. The village college provided adult learning facilities, a swimming pool and extra-curricular activities for young people, which disappeared when the college closed and have never been replaced.

The county council finally sold off the former village college land two years ago, building Littleport Primary in one corner of the playground.

A spokesperson for the county council said