Ambleside United! Dec. 8, 2009
This is my letter to Mr Peter McCaffery, Principal at University Cumbria presiding over the Ambleside campus and the proposed total closure of it.
Notes informing that letter :
The Principal announced total closure and redundancies to the press before he told the people concerned.
Students have signed up to Ambleside for 3 years – they are now being told they will have to relocate to Carlisle.
Peter McCaffery is from Durham and supports Newcastle United and is a keen cold-water swimmer.
Ambleside United are the repeat champions of The Westmorland League.
Charlotte Mason arrived from Chichester in the 1800’s to give Ambleside/The Lakes a total vision of education.
Dr Peter McCafferey, Vice-Chancellor
University of Cumbria,?Fusehill Street, Carlisle?CA1 2HH
7th December 2009
Dear vice-chancellor, I wanted to contact you directly before announcing anything through the press – my intention to oppose you/your plans to close the Ambleside Campus of the University.
You must have made this decision on the day Newcastle United got relegated from the Premiership, so wounded and barmy is its plan! … to decimate the community surrounding Ambleside United : the champions of all Westmorland!
I understand as man at the top here you are faced with tough decisions to make, I understand too you are a decent man – but this is an indecent solution to problems which are the fledgling University’s problem and should not become Ambleside’s.
Ambleside is a venerable seat of further education and has been for over 100 years. Emotive words are banded about like ‘the Oxford or Cambridge of teacher-training and outdoor pursuits’… blah blah blah. Instinctive opposition to razing this history is as much about the future – the colleges were founded and furthered by visionary people (many of them women) and they remain about vision-in-education. In a rural setting. A community. The unique landscape and culture of central/south Lakes informs the style of education at Ambleside colleges and they reciprocate.
It seems to be your battery-farming vision for education to round up all the education and stick it in one urban block in Carlisle and hope the students are persuaded by bright lights. It’s as if you wish to preserve this the Carlisle body and cut off the extremities when in this deep cold water the fledgling University finds itself.
I am going to put the case for Ambleside particularly before Lammy/Mandelsohn the Education Ministry, this week.
It’s not too late to turn this around and at the moment this decision is yours.
Yours sincerely, Stuart Clarke
