In this week's Standard (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

In this week's Standard

Making news in the Cotswolds and North Wiltshire this week:

Cirencester children are being sent to the senior school in Tetbury because spaces have been already filled at Cirencester schools with children from outside the town.

The situation means around 20 children in the Kingshill and Deer Park catchment areas cannot start at schools on their doorstep this September.

The problem has arisen because if parents in Cirencester elect to send their child to the comprehensive which is not the closest to them, then they become a lesser priority than children in places like Tetbury, Stroud or across the Wiltshire border in Ashton Keynes who have older brothers and sisters at the school.

This week the Standard has spoken to two mums who have been told their children will have to travel to Sir William Romney's School in Tetbury because the Cirencester comprehensives are oversubscribed.

The man largely behind Cotswold District Council's much-criticised budget was forced to resign as finance chairman on his last authority because his colleagues had no confidence in him, a Standard investigation has revealed.

Conservative member Malcolm Berry, whose strategy has resulted in a massive hike in car park charges and will lead to more than a 10th of the council's workforce being axed, was accused of misleading members on Reigate and Banstead Borough Council in the eighties.

His then colleagues passed a vote of no confidence in him over his handling of plans to take money from other sources to subsidise rates.

This mirrors the Cotswold Conservatives' five year budget plan, behind which councillor Berry was a driving force.

Finally, the Standard has declared June 2004 Shop Cirencester month. Our four-week-long campaign will encourage readers to use local shops and facilities wherever they can, rather than travelling to Swindon, Cheltenham or Gloucester for goods or services.

Cirencester traders have had a rough time of it recently. The current hike in car parking charges has seen takings drop at some stores by up to 70 percent.

And last week the Standard reported traders' anger after adverts appeared on the back of tickets issued by pay and display machines in Cirencester advising shoppers visit a mall in Swindon, which promised 'easy parking'.