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Priority school places plan under fire
Town Hall wants special access given to Holborn and Covent Garden pupils to ease crisis
PARENTS in a single council ward could be set to get special access to one of Camden’s secondary schools, allowing them to jump the queue for places.
Under a new scheme being discussed at the Town Hall, families living in the borough’s most southern neighbourhood – Holborn and Covent Garden – will be given priority selection at South Camden Community School.
The plan is aimed at easing the pressure for secondary school places in the absence of any school south of Euston Road.
But it would mean some children living closer to South Camden, which has seen improved exam results in recent years and is due to expand in size, could miss out on a place.
Critics said the idea was a “lab test” which diverted attention from the Town Hall’s failure to deliver a school for the area despite a determined campaign from parents.
The Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition overlooked the area when they embarked three years ago on a new school building project, which will instead see an academy open in Swiss Cottage.
Education chiefs have been shown that council-owned lock-ups in Wren Street could be converted into a new school but negotiations have been slow progressing.
Privately, some opponents to the coalition believe that making Holborn and Covent Garden a special case is aimed at dividing the campaign group, by providing some help to the area but no assistance to the neighbouring Bloomsbury ward.
The council has been warned that the policy could easily be challenged at the Office of the Schools Adjudicator.
Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson has already written to the education department in a bid to get the “priority zone” torn up.
Labour group leader Councillor Nasim Ali said in a speech to Monday’s full council meeting: “People are beginning to see that you are very willing to undertake risky lab tests with the education of the many children living in some of the most deprived wards in the south of the borough.”
He added: “This is nothing more than an attempt to patch over the gap left by the failure to provide a new secondary school in the south. It will continue to deprive children in Holborn and Covent Garden of a school based in their area.”
Conservative deputy leader Councillor Martin Davies described the attack as “incredulous” and accused of Labour of doing nothing to ease the shortage of places during 35 years in power at the Town Hall.
Education supremo Councillor Andrew Mennear said outside the chamber that the plans were still being consulted on. “It’s an idea, it’s an option to the problems facing families there,” he added. “We are still looking at it. The surveys we have seen have shown that there is more of a demand in Holborn and Covent Garden for this than Bloomsbury.” |
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