It is a great pity that public Council meetings are not more widely attended. I cannot believe it is not possible these days to make them available to a wider public on webcam or via local community radio. (Of course, at least City residents only have to make their way into town, whereas South Cambridgeshire residents would have to go many miles across county to Cambourne);

I agree that Red Balloon schools should have become outdated by now (and I am still unclear how their pupils are selected), but I think it is a mistake to assume that all bullying is down to individual bullies - in my experience, the worst bullying is by groups against outsiders and I have always assumed it is those “outsiders” that Red Balloon might be designed to help;

If Red Balloon want to buy premises to house their centre, couldn’t they find somewhere much cheaper and better suited than a house in Warkworth Terrace?

My sister was bullied really badly at school, but it would have been a disaster if she (and our family) had admitted defeat and put her in a special school. She is now a hugely confident person unrecognisable from the bullying victim she was years ago.

Schools now have pretty robust systems to stop bullying, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a neat way for teachers to educate children without stigmatizing them with the tag of ’special needs’. But then it is publically funded so people need to know exactly what we’re paying for