News February 2016
Grovelands school proposal
The saga continues but we are now much better informed about the position.
The council had applied to Historic England for a decision in principle on whether a school would be acceptable on the Bourneside site. Historic England responded with its advice on 29th October. The letter is worth reading in full.
The key paragraph is on page 5:-
"Historic England strongly discourages your Authority from pursuing the option of developing Grovelands Park for school use. In the event of an application being made on the basis of the existing information currently available, Historic England would object to the proposals."
That is quite a strong message but it is far from the end of the matter. A high level meeting between the council and Historic England took place in December 2015, at which it was agreed that the council would carry out some additional tasks as follows (quoting from an e-mail from Gary Barnes at LBE):-
1. The undertaking of a sequential test for alternative sites.
2. Development of a long term parks management plan.
3. A clear ability of the Council identify a mechanism which would restrict any further development on the site / park.
4. A statement from Heritage Lottery Fund that the development of a school would not exclude the council from being successful in bidding for heritage lottery funds to invest into Grovelands Park.
In information provided to the Friends of Grovelands, the first of these is described in slightly different terms - "Providing further evidence to demonstrate that there is no alternative site available" while the fourth becomes "Investigating the potential for the council to be successful for a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for funding to improve the park (including the school on the site)." The third disappears but it is a strange one, given that Historic England itself might be thought to fulfil this role.
It is also worth noting that none of these tasks directly tackles some of the serious criticisms of the council's application. In particular, the council's approach of hiding the proposed schools within trees is described as misunderstanding the conservation issues. As I understand it, Historic England's point is that the original Repton landscape was more open with fewer trees. If you leave the trees in place around a school then the vista inconsistent with the original. The obvious point to add is that if you remove some of the trees you have also damaged the vista and in a way which can never be put right.
Historic England also rejects the argument that the Bourneside land was of no significance in the Repton design. The council's argument is that the original drive was further to the east, joining the road somewhere near the bend opposite Bourne Avenue (which may well be true though this is largely based on a few contemporary records rather than physical evidence). Furthermore, the eyes of visitors to the house would have been drawn towards the lake and valley, thus the land on the other side of the drive was comparatively unimportant. Historic England rejects this line of argument, pointing out that Repton aimed to use the wider landscape as part of his design and that the house was sited in such a way as to take advantages of wider views to the north and east.
So there we are. We have no idea of the timescale for the additional work to be done by the council.
[We did manage to obtain most of the documents which accompanied the council's application to Historic England under Freedom of Information. Most of these are about the estate as a whole rather than the proposed school. This is how we first found out about the suggestion of a differently sited drive and about the way it was being used to dismiss the value of the Bourneside land. There is also a mass of fascinating information about the Grovelands estate. Unfortunately the council tells us that we cannot share them more widely for copyright and/or Intellectual Property reasons. Presumably most will eventually be published in some form.]
LBE School Places Workstream Meeting
For his sins, your Chair attended a meeting of this committee meeting, open to the public, in November 2015, to try (without much success) to better understand how the council is coming up with the numbers it does for primary and secondary school place demand. The first point to make is that the meeting seemed genuinely constructive, with an absence of the point scoring often seen in full council debates. The lead council official stated that the council was still negotiating with Historic England about the Grovelands proposal. However (this is not in the official minutes but was definitely said), she also said that the temporary primary school on the Broomfield site was proving popular with parents, some of whom would like to see it become permanent. She also implied that there was room on the site for that to happen. The council is of course seeking to relocate the temporary school to the Grovelands site. It is worth noting that the temporary school has increased from the original 1FE to 2FE. There is now a proposal for still more flats along the North Circular on the Ritz Parade site (including the Kingdom Hall, or the ABC cinema as some of us remember it) so the demand for places in that area is going to be high.
The Minchenden site, earmarked for a special needs facility was also discussed:-
"Q: What are the reasons for the delay in developing the Minchenden site and what are the timescales for completion of development?
A: The delay has been caused by the Council deciding that the Minchenden site would be a permanent, rather than temporary, facility and therefore that it needed to purchase the site (rather than lease it). The timescales for development have slipped more than we would have wished and this has led to a consequent need to send some children out of the borough and for Russett House and Durants to be operating above capacity. We do, however, want to ensure as a permanent facility that the design work is of the highest standard so we expect it will be approximately 2 years to complete all work."
Ashmole
Ashmole primary will open in September 2016, initially in temporary accommodation, moving into a new permanent building in September 2017.
Enfield Road, Wren Academy and the Green Belt
The GLA has advised that there are no special circumstances which would justify using the Enfield Road Green Belt land for a school. However, the Wren Academy, the body seeking to open a 8FE CofE secondary school on the site, has obtained the go ahead from the Department for Education for a school ... somewhere in the area. It is now up to another body, the Education Funding Agency, to come up with a site. The Wren Academy has proposed three possibilities, Enfield Road being their preferred option. For that to happen, It looks as if it would require the land being redesignated as outside the Green Belt, in which case housing would inevitably accompany it.
It is worth quoting again from the minutes of the Schol Workplaces Workstream meeting:-
"Q: Between 2018/19, there is projected need for an additional 10 forms of entry at secondary level. At the moment, 11 forms of entry would be delivered. Given that overcapacity can have negative financial impacts, what will be the economic impact of an extra form of entry?
A: There has been an unexpected dip in secondary demand which has led to the planned overcapacity. We are reviewing the situation all the time with our schools and will need to continue working very closely with schools to ensure we maintain the right levels of capacity."
While the short term and medium term demand could be quite different, ut seems surprising on the face of it that DfE has accepted the Wren Academy's case that 8 extra forms of entry are required. But accept it they have.
The Green Belt itself is a hot topic at the moment across the outer London boroughs and it was a key issue in the initial consultation (now closed) on the new Local Plan for Enfield. There is not much doubt that Enfield will be under consideable population pressure in the years to come but, despite the air of near certainty that some like to convey, there is doubt about its scale.
Lime Trust and Grovelands
This body had adverts in the local paper seeking to consult on potential mnon-denominational primary schools in the Chase Farm and Grovelands areas. However, they have told us that they are concentrating on Chase Farm. Sure enough, the online version of the advert makes no mention of Grovelands.
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