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Get school site right
• OUR action group is comprised of some 34 (and growing) residents who live in the immediate area of Mill Lane and we maintain the site at 152-158 and 160 Mill Lane is self-evidently too small to house the development by which it is proposed to double the size of Emmanuel School and that, by the same token, the site presently occupied by the Fortune Green Play Centre is much better suited to accommodate it.
It has become clear there are two primary reasons for the determination to squeeze the new school into the Mill Lane site.
First, Camden’s planning department views the site as appropriate and decided they will not consider the suitability of the Fortune Green site because they consider that the requirements of the development can be reasonably satisfied on Mill Lane. Secondly, the Fortune Green site lies within the parish of St Luke, Kidderpore Avenue, outside the parish boundary of Emmanuel Church. Camden have budgeted some £7-8million pounds for the development of this faith school in which, even after taking into account the concessions made by the school in their admissions criteria, only one-third of all the new places at the school will be allocated on the basis of Camden’s community criteria. Even if two-thirds of the new places will be so allocated, two-thirds of the total places will continue to be allocated on the basis of the school’s existing faith-based criteria.
Not least in the light of the furore over the lack of school places in Camden, and Belsize in particular, it would be totally unacceptable for Camden to be influenced by parish boundary issues in determining which site should attract public funding.
Camden’s primary responsibility must be to the residents of Camden.
As neighbours, stakeholders, council tax payers, and income tax payers, we require Camden and the school to act in good faith and to confirm that they will, without delay, undertake a test of all alternative sites for the school and conduct a full independent, unbiased feasibility study into the suitability of the Fortune Green site for the development.
James Rubinstein
and six other signatories, for Mill Lane Area Action Group
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