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Camden New Journal - by RICHARD OSLEY
Published: 28 June 2007

SCHOOL IS RULED OUT FOR SOUTH

Town Hall to push ahead with Swiss Cottage proposals

A FLAGSHIP school building project is set to let down thousands of families struggling to find places for their children at a secondary comprehensive.
The Town Hall is expected to announce next month that a massive government windfall will not be used to help stranded parents in the south of the borough.
Education chiefs were told on Monday that their stance effectively abandons children in neighbourhoods such as Holborn, Bloomsbury
and Covent Garden and leaves them with little hope of ever getting a school of their own.
Even though a massive consultation project has told councillors that they would be foolish to ignore the cry from the south, Camden will push ahead with plans to open a new school in Swiss Cottage.
The council has £200 million to play with after winning the blessing of ministers to enter the government’s Building Schools for the Future programme. But hardly any of that cash will be seen south of the Euston Road where appeals for more secondary places have been heard – and ignored – for over three decades. Families have been forced to search for schools outside of Camden due to the amazing lack of provision.
The latest devastating blow for parents who have fought hard to turn heads at the Town Hall will come in an advisory report to be prepared by council officials.
It is expected to advise the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition that there is no site available in southern wards – ignoring the suggestions of the Eastman Dental Hospital in Gray’s Inn Road and Mount Pleasant sorting office on the border with Islington. Instead, South Camden Community School in Somers Town will be ordered to accept more children and Maria Fidelis Convent School in Euston will be asked to take boys for the first time.
Campaigners have until tomorrow (Friday) night to change the council’s mind before work begins on what will perhaps be the most important report to be digested by members this year.
Polly Shields, from the Where Is My School? campaign, said: “Children in this area have just a one-in-four chance of gaining a place at a Camden school. The children from our local primary schools are dispersed into a host of different secondary schools in up to nine London boroughs. Many more families leave the area altogether.”
The campaign has asked for a direct response from Liberal Democrat council leader Councillor Keith Moffitt, a demand that they are entitled to make by law. He must respond before the Lib Dem and Conservative cabinet reaches it crucial “indicative” decision on July 25.
The council’s favoured strategy, however, won’t be a major vote-losing policy because the big losers in the deal will be sufferers in Labour’s last remaining heartland in Camden and territory that the coalition does not need to conquer to hold on to power. Cynics have contrasted the political situation to Swiss Cottage which is held by the Conservatives.
Camden’s latest round of consultation meetings climaxed on Monday night with a discussion at the Camden Centre – a function hall built into the side of the main Town Hall building.
The slick presentations and PowerPoint displays could not dampen the clear anger from parents south of the Euston Road.
While education chief Councillor Andrew Mennear has said he and his colleagues have not made their final decision, there has been a clear line from the Town Hall that the only site available is in Adelaide Road, Swiss Cottage.
He blames government rules and regulations, and tight timescales for being unable to offer more help.
Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson said: “We should be going to government and saying this is what we need. What it seems we are doing is going to them with something that isn’t what we need but what we think is the only thing that they will accept.”
Cllr Mennear said: “We have not abandoned the children south of Euston Road. We will go on to try and find a way to help them. We have done an extensive search of sites and the only one that came up is the Adelaide Road site.”

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