MADAM – I am writing to correct a potential misunderstanding regarding the new South Gloucestershire and Stroud College campus at Berkeley Green as reported in the SNJ.
In your report, Neil Carmichael is quoted as saying: “It was a great pleasure to attend the first SGS Berkeley GREEN employer stakeholders meeting. I am very pleased to see the good progress being made to turn this site into the technical college for young people that I initially envisioned back in 2010. This is an exciting project which is moving forward positively.”
Mr Carmichael seems to be claiming that he conceived the idea of using the old Berkeley Nuclear Laboratory site as a college campus “way back” in 2010.
The reality is somewhat different.
The idea was conceived before I left working at Berkeley in 2005 by a special Berkeley Task Force of which I was a member, alongside other local economic representatives including David Hagg and David Drew.
The forming of this idea was formally reported but not acted on at the time – the option taken being that of selling it as a commercial development area.
Soon after he was elected, I had discussions with Mr Carmichael to see how we might carry forward this idea, which was then being championed by a consortium that included the trade Union Prospect.
I tried on numerous occasions to move this idea along, writing Mr Carmichael several emails for which I was rewarded with radio silence.
I even took the initiative of meeting others involved in similar enterprises at Wylfa, the Magnox station in North Wales.
In the end I gave up and informed Mr Carmichael that I was less than impressed with his ability to help me to help this process along.
Some years later, I was at a GFirstLEP event when a chance conversation with Stephen Marston, vice chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire, prompted me to contact South Gloucestershire and Stroud College and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority – the result of which was the revival of the moribund concept of a college at Berkeley.
The rest is history.
So I would appreciate you clarifying any misunderstandings that your readers might have as a result of the reported comments from Mr Carmichael.
Richard Hellen
Dursley
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