Whitehouse Estate and Ipswich remember two of their own

In 1979 the British Army suffered one of its worst losses of life when 18 soldiers were murdered by the IRA at Warrenpoint, this was in the time  before the days of 24/7 news and also when the troubles in Northern Ireland seemed to many of us to be deliberately ignored by both the press and politicians.

But in one part of Ipswich the Warrenpoint atrocity would not be forgotten as one of those from the 2^nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment murdered that day was 18 year old Gary Barnes.

Gary was from the Whitehouse Estate and a former Westbourne School pupil.

There is a memorial at Warrenpoint, a bench in Aldershot (the former home of the Paras) and a further memorial in Palace Barracks, Belfast. Gary was not forgotten in Ipswich and his name was added to the Cenotaph in  Christchurch Park, Ipswich.

27 Years later, another young man left Whithouse Estate to join the British Army  as a member of his local regiment, the Royal Anglians. Aaron McClure lived close to where Gary lived and went to the same school as Gary and was even in the same year at school as Gary’s nephew. Whithouse is a small estate where everyone knows everyone, a village within the town. In 2007, Aaron was to lose his life in Afghanistan, just north of Sangin in a ‘friendly fire’ incident.

One town, one estate, one school and now they had lost two young brave men fighting for their country.

I became a councillor in 2008 and then had a year away as I returned to the army in 2009 to serve in Afghanistan, on my return I was keen for a lasting memorial to be in the town to Aaron and David Ellesmere the council leader agreed and we both thought a street named after Aaron would be a fitting tribute.

We had a number of opportunities to name a street after this brave man but we were keen for the new road to be in the area of the Whitehouse Estate. Over the last few years we have been building more council homes and one new development would be behind the Whitehouse Estate shops on Ulster Way, so we saw Mrs McClure and family join us to place the McClure Way sign up.

The council was then approached by one of the areas more senior residents who thought it would also be an ideal opportunity to also honour another Whithouse lad, Gary Barnes.

So on Friday all those ideas and plans came to fruition as we unveiled Barnes Square, a new development of flats on McClure Way. It was an event that I will never forget, the three sisters of Gary, were joined by Lorraine the mother of Aaron plus other family members but they were not the only people there to honour the tow lads, also in attendance were friends, pupils from Westbourne School, local Ward councillors , veterans and the Mayor – also a Whitehouse boy.

I was very happy that I was also able to facilitate the  involvement of  the regiments that Gary and Aaron served in and it was fitting that the families were joined in the unveiling and the photographs by serving members of 1 Royal Anglian and 2 Parachute Regiment.

It is important in my mind that Ipswich remembered these two young lads who left our great town to serve in the British Army, now their names will always be part of the Estate that made them – McClure Way and Barnes Square on Whitehouse Estate.

Ipswich will never forget them.

Good news for Chantry School but Tories still can't be trusted on Education

First of all I must start by congratulating Mr Gummer our MP for managing to get Chantry on the list of schools to be either re-built or refurbished. A number of the local Tory blogs have been critical of the Ipswich Labour/my response to the good news. It is good news and we join the staff, pupils and parents in welcoming the news even if it is two years late.

But we would be failing as local politicians if we did not highlight some of the many problems we are facing because of the way Gove and the Tory run Suffolk County Council manage education in Ipswich.

Chantry is good news but we have a number of questions that need answering:

The Ipswich Academy/Holywells new school building has seen their budget cut and is now reliant on Ipswich Borough Council assisting to get the project up and running.

Will Stoke High be refurbished? It has not made the new Tory list. Nor has Westbourne, a Tory blogger pointed out to me that Westbourne is not an issue for Mr Gummer because the school is not in his Ipswich constituency. Not sure the residents of Westgate ward (in his constituency) whose children go to Westbourne will have the same view.

Westbourne - not on the list


1. When will Chantry start to be re-built? It is not on the priority list of 42 schools.

2. What will the budget be? Will it face the same problems that Holywells/Ipswich Academy is currently facing?

3. Will it be a PFI project? Much criticised by the Tories but still being used.

4. It is believed that the schools that are in the list will be built in ‘regional bunches’ – does that mean local builders will miss out on work opportunities and does that mean the County Council and the school will have little say in the build and we will be left with the IKEA type flat pack builds that seem to be currently favoured?

I have little faith in how the County runs education in Suffolk, the way that Tory Cllr Spicer voted to get rid of Middle Schools (a decision that I agree with) but she is now promoting the setting of Free ‘Middle’ Schools. It is even worse in the East of the county, where we have the Tory MP for Suffolk Coastal praising Gove for setting up Free schools whilst the Tory MP for Waveney (and the Tory County Council leader) stating there is no need for a Free school in the Beccles area.

We even have the County putting undue pressure on parents to send their children to Free schools by only paying the transport costs to the nearest school – so much for choice!

But what has that to do with Ipswich? We currently have not heard of any Free School being set up in our town but the point is the County are spending money and Officer time on consultations, handing over middle schools, promoting Free Schools – all from the budget to provide education to all Suffolk children – so we have money that should be spent on Ipswich pupils being used to promote Tory ideological education policies.

Tory bloggers have criticised me for not congratulating Mr Gummer (I have) but they seem to forget the new Suffolk One – 6th Form Centre, that caters for all pupils in the west of the town (plus the building of UCS and Suffolk New College) – all built with funds from a Labour Government.

The Tories and Gove in particular can’t be trusted with the education of our children; we have seen the hideous way they have helped the Seckford Charity set up Free Schools in the Beccles area even though there is no public demand for them.

Other Tory educations measures have seen:

• Cuts leading to 10,000 fewer teachers working in the profession in the last year.

• The dreadful misuse of the Academy programme - dreadful waste of money. Where school are spending considerable amounts in consultancy fees, legal fees and management time to effectively maintain the school as it was in every respect as to how it is managed.

• Replacement of teaching "quality standards" with another set of standards which are almost entirely agreed upon to be less clear [these are the standards that teachers are judged upon to initial qualify and later get pay increases up the pay scale]

• The complete dismantlement of the national strategies site - which had fantastic resources and work being done from it. No replacement for this means that schools are effectively not accountable for so many different aspects of their work.

The Labour Party must join with parents, pupils and concerned residents in highlighting what the Tories are doing to our education system – how long before we see the return of Grammar schools in Suffolk?

So well done Mr Gummer on getting Chantry on the list but that is one good thing your Government has done for our children whist most of the decisions Mr Gove has made are harming our children.