DCH 66 Bedford Borough Council
Memorandum submitted by
Councillor Frank Garrick
It has long been a mystery to the people
of this community that the Harpur Trust can maintain its charitable
(and non-tax paying) status while its major function is to educate
the children of the well to do from around the country (and other
parts of the world). It is able to this in the most well-equipped
and generous facilities both for its academic role and for its
sporting and cultural activities.
The four secondary private schools
also distort the provision of state education by creaming off
many of the most able students from the most supportive homes.
So that the local comprehensive schools are deprived to some
extent of their most motivated and gifted pupils.
It seems to me that the whole arrangement
here in Bedford is a complete distortion of what Sir William Harpur
intended. At the very least they should pay the community through
the taxation system.
14 June 2004
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