Petition to object the Council’s plan for Belleville’s extension

1 min read

Following the primary school consultation and the Public Meeting at Belleville School, Monday 15Nov10, a petition is available online aiming to “object to Wandsworth Council’s flawed proposals for the Forthbridge Rd school site“.
Author: Ian Hamilton
After an expansion consultation in June 2010, Belleville Primary School will use the Forthbridge Rd school site from Sep2011, but admissions will still be based on distance from the Belleville main site, over a 1km away.
Wandsworth Council passed this plan despite the 479 objections it received. These were made mostly to the admissions policy which will exclude local children from the Forthbridge Rd site.
Wandsworth Council are now holding another consultation which ends very soon (1st Dec2010).
We, the undersigned, believe that:

  • The Wandsworth Council proposals detailed in the latest consultation are flawed and do not adequately address any of the concerns of the 479 objections made in the Belleville expansion consultation (June2010).
  • These complicated proposals for two, ranked Geographical Priority Areas have conflated the sibling issue at Belleville with the Forthbridge Rd school access issue.
  • The proposal for a Second GPA which:
    a) is ranked in priority behind the First GPA;
    b) contains the Forthbridge Rd site, but is skewed to the west of it;
    c) still calculates admission distances from the main Belleville site;
    means there is little realistic chance of any child living close to the Forthbridge Rd site gaining access to it.
    (As acknowledged by the council at the public meeting on 15Nov2010).

Instead we would urge Wandsworth Council to recognise that:

  1. The Forthbridge Rd school site is an opportunity to develop a successful school site with a strong link to its local community, rather than simply an isolated annexe;
  2. This would best be achieved by a guaranteed percentage of the reception places at the Forthbridge Rd school site being reserved for local children;
  3. Admission criteria for this to be the same as any other school site BUT distance to be measured from the Forthbridge school site;
  4. These local places could be phased-in over a number of years starting from 2012 (to protect demand at other local schools north of the Clapham Common);

You can respond to the consultation before 1st Dec in writing to The Consultation Officer, Admission Consultation, Room 90, Town Hall, Wandsworth High Street, London SW18 2PU
Or Email primaryexpansionconsultation@wandsworth.gov.uk
Or online www.wandsworth.gov.uk/bsf/consultations
Online petition to object to Wandsworth Council’s proposals for the Forthbridge Rd school site (CLICK HERE)
Read also:

Did you like reading this article? Help us write more!

Clapham Junction Insider (formerly known as the CJAG website) has been publishing local news for over 14 years and remains committed to providing information about the local community and engaging in public interest journalism.

Our goal is to feature a wide range of community campaigns and initiatives, local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, and provide assistance to residents.

We have always been dedicated to these endeavours and have no intention of changing. In fact, we would like to expand our efforts further.

Until recently, all the stories, analyses, and reports published have been made possible with the invaluable help of many volunteers. However, it requires a significant amount of time and effort, and we are frustrated that we cannot do more. There are numerous topics we would like to cover, but we require financial resources to provide regular information.

Therefore, we kindly ask our readers to consider offering financial support to sustain these efforts. Any contributions made will help support community and public interest news, as well as the expansion of our coverage in this area.

2 ways of supporting our project

Do you think what we are doing is helping the community and you want to encourage us to do more? We have set up two ways of supporting our project:

  1. Paypal: For one-off contributions, you can just use your bank card. However if you wish to encourage and support us regularly with a small amount, you will need a Paypal account to set up a monthly subscription. Click here to donate.
  2. Patreon: this is a well-known membership platform that connects content creators with supporters. Mainly, it offers financial tools that let supporters subscribe to projects that give creators a predictable income stream as they continue to create content. Click here to subscribe and support us regularly.

If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor.

CJI editor and Clapham Junction Action Group co-founder and coordinator since 2008, Cyril has lived in Clapham Junction since 2001.
He is also funder and CEO of Habilis-Digital Ltd, a digital agency creating and managing websites and Internet solutions.