I WAS astonished to see our mayor championing the proposed new college in Basildon town center, a building that is now supposedly half the size of a football pitch rather than the original one and a third football pitch size.

All matters considered, you would have expected him to be keeping a low profile on this embarrassing substitute for what was originally promised by the Conservative council.

They come out with this rhetoric about state of the art IT facilities when what we need are real skills.

Young people with good IT skills are ten a penny in today’s society.

Practical skills are what should be available and then the latest con is they mention science as an afterthought. Big deal.

This proposed college is a long way from the one proposed all those months ago when the Conservatives justified selling Dry Street and the existing Basildon college site for upmarket housing. What a joke.

Moving on from that, if the new college is so much smaller where has all the allocated funding gone, because this project should be much cheaper to build.

At the outset many critics said the college on the market site was ridiculous because of its size.

The con men said it was achievable so why have they downsized it then?

And why are students being offered practical subjects in areas like Southend and Leigh.

These questions need answering. I suspect that South Essex college partnerships have brainwashed the council.

It is a wonderful project, but as council tax payers we deserve to know why we are being conned and we need to know why we couldn’t have our original college rebuilt on the existing site. There are no size restrictions there.

Woodlands school have some very impressive new buildings opposite the old college site so they proved it can be done.

Overall this project is the thin end of the wedge and it should be explained where the money has gone and why it is about two fifths of it original size. Who are you kidding Dadds?

JASON LOCKET