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Secondary site in the south
• FRANK Dobson MP’s meeting with education secretary Ed Balls and his conclusion that there is still time for further discussions on locating a site for a secondary school in south Camden provides the opportunity to examine further proposals for provision of such a school to the south of Euston Road.
In this connection we submit a way we believe such a school can be obtained.
A Holborn and St Pancras secondary school site, bounded by Huntley Street, Capper Street, Tottenham Court Road and University Street.
In 2006 the Camden Primary Care Trust gave at nil cost this site and its buildings used as the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital to the University College Hospital Trust.
This transfer at nil cost from one public body to another is proposed as a solution to the present difficulty of finding a site.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital is due to move to its new location in UCLH premises when these are completed in 2008.
After this the site will be vacant and therefore it is proposed it becomes the site for a new community school as sought by the Holborn and St Pancras Campaign for a Local Secondary School.
Obtaining the above site would solve one of the two problems Camden says it cannot do – the other being the money to build, which the borough says it has not got.
To solve both problems, the site and the money, it is proposed to petition parliament for: One, parliament to arrange the transfer at nil cost of the above to a site to a trust formed by the campaign.
Two, parliament to vote to the trust the estimated £35 million required to build a new school.
For this parliamentary purpose the campaign will prepare a petition to parliament, endorsed by those residents of Camden who have noted and suffered a lack of a secondary school in south Camden; are presently so suffering and those who anticipate such if a school is not provided in the near future.
Alan Spence
for chairman Eugene Franklin secretary Bury Place Residents Association and Jim Murray
Chairman Bloomsbury Association
A school in a deprived area of the borough
• I HAVE no wish to directly enter the arguments about the siting of Camden’s 10th secondary school whether in the north or south of the borough but I cannot let go unchallenged the assertion by Frank Dobson that a school in Swiss Cottage would not be serving a deprived neighbourhood (see Forum, February 14).
If this is one of his core arguments then he is not doing his constituents’ case any favours as such assertions are typical of the majority viewpoint within the political and officer classes in the borough that need ends once you go west of Haverstock Hill.
For Frank Dobson’s information, since he appears never to have ventured to the parts of the borough that are not in his constituency, a school in Swiss Cottage would for instance serve among other areas Kilburn Ward, which has among the highest density of social housing in the borough (eight large and four small estates in one ward) and would rank high on any list of indices of deprivation.
At the same time, to suggest that a school in the south would only serve deprived areas such as King’s Cross and Somers Town, currently served incidentally by South Camden Community School, is disingenuous. There are areas south of the Euston Road which could not be described as deprived.
I am disappointed that an MP should resort to crude stereotypes (that is, south of the borough deprived, north-west of the borough not deprived).
There may well be good reasons for building the school in the south of the borough but this is not one of them.
John Kilvington, NW6
Tick the option and vote to keep Frank Barnes
• CAMDEN have recently published a consultation document on the future of Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children.
The first question in it is “should the school remain at its present location?”. Yes! Any of the other proposals will do much harm to the pupils’ education. Frank Dobson MP recently wrote that he believes that Camden sees Frank Barnes School as “just a nuisance” (New Journal, February 14).
So it seems.
Help save Frank Barnes School by getting a copy of the consultation document from a Camden library, or phoning Camden, and tick the option to keep the school at its present location. Stop them demolishing a good school. Vote for Frank Barnes.
Steve McKernan
Needham Terrace NW2
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