IT was a once in a lifetime opportunity to change forever the way our young people learn, to raise their aspirations, and to show them that adults do care about what they want.

The Building Schools for the Future project, to rebuild the town’s four secondary schools and two special schools, would have provided the town with six sparkling new facilities, which would have been the envy of Somerset.

But last week the Government scrapped plans to rebuild East Bridgwater Community School, Haygrove School and Penrose Special School, and said it would “review” plans to rebuild Elmwood Special School, Robert Blake Science College and Chilton Trinity Technology College.

Bridgwater’s new schools are among hundreds of BSF projects nationwide which Education Secretary Michael Gove said should be scrapped.

The Government hasn’t a penny to spare, but that doesn’t mean all these schemes should go, and we believe our town has the best case of all to be made an exception.

Firstly, the need for replacement schools is obvious to anybody who visits the current sites.

Secondly, our contract was just TWO DAYS from being signed when Mr Gove pulled the plug.

All the hard work had been done, but the fight is not over.

Today, the Mercury launches the ‘Save Our Schools’ campaign to get these decisions overturned.

Click here to download our petition Save Our Schools petition.pdf