| |
EDUCATION CENTRE IS BALANCE
Funding shortfall puts £20m adult learning development in doubt
PLANS to build a flagship adult education centre in Marylebone have been thrown into doubt after it emerged that promised funding has yet to be delivered.
Westminster Council finance bosses may have to look elsewhere for the extra £9.2million they need to build the centre in Moxon Street after it was revealed that the recession has decimated the Learning and Skills Council’s (LSC) coffers.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds have already been spent on drawing up plans for the £20m centre intended to replace two ageing sites in Victoria and Maida Vale which fail to meet new government standards.
The council has admitted it was banking on the funding and, should it be lost, would have to rethink plans to sell off the two buildings in Ebury Bridge and Amberley Road, with a land value of around £25m, and dig deep into their own piggybank to pay for upgrades.
Westminster Adult Education Service made an application to the LSC in 2008, with
an agreement “in principle” that the money ?would be released when planning permission was granted.
But this week the LSC’s finances were revealed to be in tatters, with 144 building schemes put on hold indefinitely around the country, sparking a government inquiry into allegations of mismanagement.
The LSC says it is working out a schedule of priorities, meaning the council’s plan to get work under way by the summer is unlikely.
For now, the borough’s 8,000 or so adult learners will have to stay put in their outdated Victorian school buildings.
Harvey Marshall, ward councillor for Marylebone High Street, said: “I wouldn’t put money on them getting the money for this. Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent already, but the LSC have overspent and everything has been suspended.”
Labour’s education spokeswoman Councillor Barbara Grahame said: “It is a blow for adult education in Westminster. Moxon Street was going to be a state-of-the-art centre and now it looks like it’s not going to happen.”
Conservative councillor Ed Argar, cabinet member for health and adult social services, said: “We are in contact with the Learning and Skills Council and are urging them to stand by their commitment, without which we would have a serious funding shortfall and the future of this vital project would undoubtedly be in jeopardy.”
If the project was mothballed, developers could get the chance to intervene on the site – one of the most coveted plots of land in central London. The area’s biggest landowners, the Howard De Walden Estate, are the frontrunners, this week putting their own proposals for part of the site on the table.
The debate over what to do with Moxon Street car park has raged ever since the land was the subject of a compulsory purchase from Howard De Walden by the then Greater London Council in 1966 for “educational use”.
But with that covenant about to expire in 2011, De Walden are gearing up to put in an offer for the site.
Simon Baynham, managing director at Howard De Walden, said: “We don’t have a problem with the Adult Education Centre but the consultation process has been a bit of a joke because the public didn’t know there were other options.
“The council is just looking at a piece of tarmac in isolation from the rest of the area. We think people living in the area want a bigger Waitrose, a nursery and a GP surgery and we are going to do our own consultation to find out.” |
 |
|
|
| |
| |
