News February 2017
Grovelands School
This is still unresolved, though council officials expect something to be decided by the council by end of March 2017, whether this be to drop the project or to continue trying to make the case to Historic England, which made its objections clear over a year ago
However, there have been other developments on the primary school front in Southgate. The council had decided that the temporary school on the Broomfield site will become a permanent two form entry school. This seems sensible given the amount of development vert close to that school and to Bowes. In addition, Ashmole has opened its new two form entry primary in temporary accommodation within its grounds. A planning application to Barnet Council for permanent accommodation appears to be as yet undecided. Assuming roughly half its students come from the Southgate area, that is three additional forms of entry already available. The most recent paper submitted to Enfield Council's cabinet on school places stated that there was no imminent need for further primary places in the area and that if Grovelands were to be pursued this would be with the intention of opening a school in 2020/21.
Just to confuse matters further, the Lime Trust has applied to DfE for approval to open a primary free school in the Southgate area. The Lime Trust is a free school group which already operated Larkswood Primary in Chingford and has approval from DfE to open a new primary in the Ridgeway/Chase Farm area, partly to serve the new housing which will be coming to part of the Chase Farm site. As yet they do not have a site. One of the oddities of the free school process is that a free school could be approved by DfE even if the prospect of obtaining a site in the proposed area is remote. It is then up to the Education Funding Agency (another arm of central government) to obtain a site.
The Lime Trust explicitly mentioned Grovelands in some of their literature and held public meetings in November advertised as being specifically about Grovelands. Two GRA committee members met the Lime Trust a few days before the meeting and they also spoke to Historic England. At the meetings it appeared that their attention had moved more towards the old Minchenden School site, perhaps sharing that site with the special needs school (see next item) but it is not clear how well they had understood the planning issues around Minchenden.
So that is where we are - the council still to decide whether to push on, DfE still to decide on the Lime Trust's application and Barnet still to decide on Ashmole's planning application.
Minchenden and the Library
As mentioned above, the Minchenden site is earmarked for a special needs school for autistic (I think) children of secondary school age. The council has acquired this site from Barnet Southgate College. As part of the deal, the College gets the site of what was Southgate Circus Library, for potential redevelopment. The Library has reopened on what estate agents would call a bijou scale within the college grounds with much reduced stock. You also need to sign in if you wish to see the library, which is a first as far as I am aware for a public library! This had been done at short notice and without any indication of the scale and nature of the change. For several months the council even failed to put a notice outside the old library showing users where the new one is.
The temptation is to go to Palmers Green or elsewhere instead but that could eventually result in losing the library altogether.
Back to Minchenden. It used to be a secondary school but some building work will be necessary. However, this will be to or adjacent to the twentieth century buildings and Historic England are thought to be happy. The older part of the site - Southgate House and the grounds in front of it - will not be used. It could subsequently be sold off by the council but it is pretty clear from the planning documents that have been prepared that redevelopment of that part of the site is not on the agenda and would be opposed by conservation authorities. The Lime Trust had, we think, misunderstood this and thought that the older half of the site could be available to them and would be more acceptable to residents than new housing.
The Minchenden planning application is - you guessed it - still awaiting a decision.
Not news exactly - Arsenal at Grovelands!
A fascinating article in the latest Newsletter of the Southgate and District Civic Trust details how the Bourneside land was used for training and junior matches by Arsenal between 1954 and 1960. The main training area appears to have been the field now owned by Thames Water but the article contains a photograph of the first team squad in front of what is almost certainly now the Old Ashmoleans' clubhouse on the Bourneside site. I am old enough to have seen some of them play - David Court and John Barnwell for a start. The White Hart was for many years renowned as the favourite watering hole for the players. Of course in those days footballers lived in ordinary houses and their children went to ordinary schools (the sons of Danny Blanchflower and Cliff Jones both went to Minchenden) rather than in mansions behind electronic gates that sometimes jam just before training!
The Civic Trust newsletter also carries a report of the talk they hosted on the wartime history of Trent Park, where senior German officers were, essentially, lulled into indiscretions which were being monitored! They were even taken into central London to dine, which would have caused outrage if it had become known but it was all a con to make them think the British were bumbling amateurs with a status fixation. Trent Park is now thought to have played an important part in winning the war.
By belonging to such local groups, you can sometimes get a much better understanding of the history of where we live.
Comentarios