Not building schools for the future
The Department for Education put out a sobering document this evening. The word "stopped" appears alongside the names of dozens of the south's schools who had applied for rebuilding under the Labour programme Building Schools for the Future.
You can see the list here. Southampton, Portsmouth and Bournemouth and Poole are hit hardest. Hampshire, West Sussex and West Berkshire also have an interest. The schools allowed to continue are mostly ones that are nearly finished. Academies will be reviewed case by case along with some individual "sample" schools where a lot of planning had already been done.
In the House of Commons Michael Gove forensically picked out the dreadful record of the programme. Its delays and overspends have been documented by the Public Accounts Committee.
He poured scorn on the centralised bureaucracy that led to arguments over the correct species of trees to be planted, or required the cutting down of forests more to produce the application forms which he banged on the dispatch box.
But in the end this is a money saving exercise, and the list of projects stopped is a list of hopes and dreams dashed for hundreds of thousands of children, their parents and teachers.
Welcome to the hustings! I'm Peter Henley, the BBC's political reporter in the south of England. From parish councils in Sussex, to European politics in Oxford, this is the blog for you. 
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