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Protesters make their case |
Outrage as school faces ‘blackmail’ over funding
Hundreds join protest march to the Town Hall as Somers Town primary is told: Agree to ‘co-location’ or wait five years for urgent repairs
EDUCATION chiefs have been accused of “blackmail” after warning overdue refurbishments to a primary school in Somers Town will be delayed by at least five years – unless it agrees to sharing its site with another school.
Around 400 pupils, parents and teachers marched from Edith Neville School in Ossulston Street to the Town Hall on Monday night to campaign against plans to rebuild Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children on its grounds.
They warned the squeeze risks harming the education of pupils from both schools and has been foisted on Edith Neville with hardly any consultation.
The specialist school will be homeless when it is evicted from its current site in Swiss Cottage to make way for Camden’s first academy school, and the council has been accused of treating the issue of where it will go as an “after-thought” in the rush to get the new secondary school built.
Monday’s march might not have been the longest protest march in Camden’s history, but it was the numbers rather than the distance that appeared to rattle senior figures in the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition at the Town Hall.
The size of the demonstration required a police escort as a snaking line of protesters of all ages passed the British Library and filed into Euston Road. When it reached the Town Hall, in King’s Cross, objectors were penned behind barriers on the other side of Judd Street – but their chants of “Here Our Voice” would nevertheless have reverberated throughout the council’s headquarters.
Around 50 were locked out of the main chamber due to a lack of room as governors and unions pleaded for a re-think at an all-member meeting.
Conservative education chief Councillor Andrew Mennear told the chamber that unless the two schools were rebuilt together in Somers Town, Edith Neville would face a wait to get urgent repairs.
He said Edith Neville was top of a priority list for “modifications and updates” but that investment was not just shared out on the basis of which school is in most disrepair.
Cllr Mennear said unless the “co-location” went ahead, “it would put back the funding by five years. I’m not saying that’s a disaster, but I recognise that Edith Neville is a school in urgent need of an update.
“This particular plan would be one that could happen much earlier.”
There is a feeling among some parents at Edith Neville that the school has often got a sore deal from the council and has already waited too long for help.
Governors are angry that they were not given the chance to fully talk plans through and have called on the council to ask all of Camden’s primaries to consider incorporating Frank Barnes onto their sites.
Esther Caplin, one of the school’s governors, said: “Somers Town is home to a vibrant mix of Camden residents, but it is one of Camden’s poorest wards, densely built, with families – including many refugees and asylum seekers – living in cramped conditions with little access to open space. Over 90 per cent of the children have no English when they enter school. Two schools on one site is obviously fraught with problems.”
There are no crossed swords between Edith Neville and Frank Barnes – the deaf school has itself seen its pupils and supporters march on the Town Hall demanding a better deal. At one stage, a hugely unpopular attempt to transfer Frank Barnes out of the borough was on the cards.
Ms Caplin added: “Rushed decisions have resulted in Edith Neville’s poor state today.
“Don’t disregard community views and let this happen again.”
The academy project was meant to be one of the roaring successes of the coalition administration – it has not gone unnoticed that the timescale to get the new secondary school ready would see it open just before the 2010 local elections – but the plan has been beset by one controversy after another.
There still isn’t agreement among Camden’s well-developed education community that the academy is even being built in the right place, or whether University College London should have been allowed to sponsor it.
Labour’s deputy leader Councillor Nash Ali stared down council leaders during Monday’s meeting with the words: “You are totally messing it up. You are creating a nightmare out of it. It’s sad.
“The truth has to be said: you just haven’t listened.”
The row over Edith Neville’s future will be a main point of discussion at a meeting of Camden’s branch of the Campaign for State Education at the school tonight (Thursday). A petition of support got an unusual boost when the world’s second tallest man, 7ft 8ins Hussain Bisaid, popped into the school and signed up last week.
Labour’s education spokeswoman Councillor Heather Johnson said: “They are saying to Edith Neville: You can’t have repairs unless you do what we say. That’s blackmail. It’s as simple as that.”
In a separate deputation to the council, Hugo Pierre from Unison, said: “Why is it that every time the council puts forward proposals it meets with mass opposition from governors and parents?
“We demand that you rebuild Edith Neville without any of the strings and catches attached.”
Kevin Courtney, branch secretary of Camden NUT, had earlier told the crowds through a loud-hailer: “The council shouldn’t be opening this academy in Swiss Cottage. It is the wrong school in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Cllr Mennear said: “We are confident that there will be advantages to if Edith Neville was able to be rebuilt as quickly as possible. It is very far from being an afterthought. I’ve heard that expressed but I dispute the notion that we haven’t listened.” |
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