Camden New Journal - Letters to the Editor: Results of school consultation ignored yet again

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Camden New Journal - Letters to the Editor
Published: 8 November 2007

Results of school consultation ignored yet again

• IT was a real shame that the Lib Dem and Conservative councillors chose to ignore, once again, the results of the council’s own consultation, the petitions and the deputations put to them for an “open competition” over who runs a new secondary school in the borough.
It was clear from the meeting on Monday that councillors from both those parties had a pre-rehearsed “line” that they wouldn’t cede their decision-making to the influential Schools Adjudicator (an educational specialist) like Haringey did in a similar situation earlier this year.
The £200 million that the government is giving Camden should be used more prudently. Yet the decision to press ahead was taken on scant evidence and the siting of the school – in St John’s Wood rather than in the south – involves knocking down other schools, including a special needs school.
What’s more, the council in its own corporate risk assessment has admitted its estimates on the need for provision are open to serious questioning.
Taken together the public response, the results of the consultation and the evidence the council itself collected, merit a fuller and more detailed investigation which tests the thinking, consultation and planning that has taken place. Sadly, it seems from the political finger-pointing that the Lib Dems in particular indulged in to justify their position that they are more interested in their political legacy than the weight of local need on this once-in-a-generation decision.
This flies in the face of the “consensus” which Camden schools policy has historically sought.
CLLR Theo Blackwell
Labour, Regent’s Park

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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