IT’S nothing new for those of us working and living in Shropshire, and particularly in the south of the county; simply, the issue of funding for key services in rural areas, compared with the cities.

Few would begrudge finances supporting the issues that our inner cities present.

However, Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury & Atcham, has stated that: “This is a ticking time-bomb, which the government has to handle very carefully.”

He is absolutely right, and I fear the time is here.

The example used in the Times (February 6, 2017) stated that the difference in education funding between Shropshire and the City of London is now £4,185 per pupil.

This would equate to more than £61 million being available to the secondary schools and academies, alone.

This does not even include the primary school sector!

The new fairer-funding formula, that was intended to offset some of these issues, will actually result in nine secondary schools in Shropshire losing more money.

This lack of equity is the same whether schools are academies or council-maintained schools.

A national database (schoolcuts.org.uk) has projected that Shropshire will lose £13.4 million pounds from the education budget by 2019-20, a cut of £394 per pupil.

In terms of teaching, this can be viewed as losing 360 teachers from Shropshire’s schools.

I would urge the community of south Shropshire to take every opportunity to follow the news on this issue, contact the appropriate officers and people with influence and make the point that, really, enough is enough. Unfair is unfair.