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Education chief pledges funds for a new school
EDUCATION Secretary Ed Balls has offered to pay for a new school in Bloomsbury in a major breakthrough for parents calling for better secondary provision.
He waded into the simmering row over school places by pledging to stump up extra government funds to make sure stranded families in wards like Holborn and Bloomsbury have somewhere to send their children.
It is the first time a government minister has promised to come to the aid of parents who over decades have found it virtually impossible to find secondary school places.
Mr Balls has marked the issue as “urgent” and has already asked his aides to investigate why the area was overlooked by Camden Council’s decision to blow a £200 million grant on a new academy school in St John’s Wood, instead of finding somewhere suitable south of the Euston Road. He said: “We would be willing to fund a new school in the south as long as it could be demonstrated that the places were needed.”
His comments came in a letter to Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson, who said he is determined to see a new school open in what he views as deprived and needy wards.
Polly Shields, from the Where Is My School campaign, said: “It is a good sign that the government has listened to our case and is taking it seriously.”
Controversially, the Town Hall’s choice of site in Adelaide Road is a two-minute walk from Quintin Kynaston and will mean turfing out Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children from its current home.
Campaigners still believe a deal for the Eastman Dental ?Hospital site in Gray’s Inn Road can be revived.
Mr Dobson said: “We will show there is a need for a new school. I’ve had several animated discussions with Ed Balls and what he is now saying is that he will help and can help and it won’t delay work to any other school. Ideally it would be a community school, second choice would be a trust school and then third an academy. The most important thing is that we get the thing open, the nature of the school is secondary.”
Professor Michael Worton from University College London, the sponsor of the planned academy in Swiss Cottage, has previously said he would welcome a new school in Bloomsbury but said: “Our understanding is that no site has been identified for any new school in the south of the borough. We are therefore moving ahead with our proposal.” |
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