Robert and Michael recently attended yet another meeting with the Council Officers regarding the ongoing parking problems, specifically in Broadmeadows and Park Lea. The Council have extended their original proposals to both areas and we were very keen to discuss this. The Council informed us that they were intending to contact all residents within a few days outlining all relevant details and requesting comments.
 
We are fully aware that there is much disquiet as to where the vehicles will park once the proposals are fully implemented and we raised this very issue with the Officers. At this stage the Council did not consider any extension to the latest proposals was necessary or desirable. Our own view is that the proposals, to date, have merit, but we will continue to keep an open mind as to whether they should be extended.

Children in Sunderland who get free school meals have less chance of doing well in their GCSEs than their peers, according to Government figuresDocuments obtained from the Department for Education and Skills show only one in 10 Wearside pupils on free school meals got five GCSEs A*-C, including English and maths, in 2005. This compares to a success rate of one-in-four for pupils who pay for their meals. There is also a gap in success in further education success between those who pay for their meals and those who don't. Teacher and Tory councillor Robert Oliver, the Sunderland Conservatives' spokesman on education, said the figures showed the education system wasn't doing enough for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. He said: "Children with homes with books and an educational environment in them are going to do better, and there's the thing that children of teachers do best of all."

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Children should be locked in school at lunchtime to boost the uptake of school meals and stop them eating unhealthy food, say Sunderland Tories.At some secondary schools, fewer than one in 10 pupils now pay to eat in their school canteen, despite efforts to improve the food on offer. City leaders want to see junk-food exclusion zones set up around schools to stop youngsters buying greasy lunches from burger vans instead of healthy school meals.Robert Oliver, a teacher and Sunderland Conservatives' spokesman on education, thinks the best approach is to introduce lunchtime lock-ins. Many secondary schools on Wearside now keep at least 11-to-13-year-old pupils in school, some preventing all but sixth formers from leaving the school gates at lunchtime – and Coun Oliver wants to see all schools adopt that policy. "My opinion is that, realistically, only lock-ins are going to make any difference," he said. If you look at the table of top-performing schools, they are all keeping pupils in all the time. Obviously I don't think that's the reason they're doing well – there are probably other reasons as well – but there's definitely a link."

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