The head's dilemma? To persuade not only the children in the school, but also their parents and maybe even the whole community, that the wealth and prosperity that Ebbsfleet station symbolises is something they can and should be part of.
We visited Bluewater. Linda quotes some of the frightening statistics as to how important our wealth is to places like these.
But if this huge enterprise had not been built here, the site it occupies would have just remained a huge hole in the ground, loads of jobs would not have been created in building it, and loads of jobs would not now exist in staffing the shops that occupy it and serving the millions of people who visit it each year.
We heard about this area being the dustbin of London, about it just being somewhere that people go past on their way to or from London on the river, about how close it is in physical terms to the prosperity of the big city, but how in practical terms for most of its people it might just as well be in Nepal.
That is a slight exaggeration perhaps, but it is certainly a different world , but only seven minutes away by train when the rail link eventually opens up.
David Wrighton
The MIBIC Chaplains' Conference Day Out
The Day out-charging around North Kent in a Coach in search of ideas.
It is far too easy, even for people who live comparatively close, to presume that the South-east of England is a prosperous amorphous mass, and that you need to go elsewhere in these isles to see real poverty and deprivation.
The MIBIC Chaplains had a packed day charging through the Kent Countryside and seeing what was being done in this part of the world to tackle the very real deprivation that does exist.
We saw a great deal, but the main things that came over to me are that people matter, and that you ignore them at your peril.
For example, we visited Gravesham High Street and walked around the town centre. We were impressed by the efforts to make the place a better place to live for the sake of those who do live there. But then, we were regaled by one lady who came out of her shop to 'have a go at us' along the lines of 'they bring all these people around here to see what’s going on, but they never ask us who live here what we want'.
The moral to this being, perhaps, that you can consult as much as you want, but if people choose not to be consulted ...
We visited a school which is in sight of the prestigious new rail terminal being built on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link at Ebbsfleet. The head was inspirational, the buildings were impressive and the school was half full. It is in a very poor area.
