The Department for Education (DfE) has been accused of seeking to transfer a school site worth £10 million pounds to the private sector without compensating local authorities.
The Department for Education (DfE) has been accused of seeking to transfer a school site worth £10 million pounds to the private sector without compensating local authorities.
Ashmount Primary School in Islington is set to move moved to new premises in January, and has been looking to sell the former site to a local housing association since the move.
According to one of the school’s governors, however, the DfE’s Education Funding Agency has stepped in to block the sale, requisitioning the old school site to make way for a free school without compensating the council.
School governor David Barry claims that Islington Council could now be out of pocket to the tune of millions through what amounts to a net transfer of funds from the council to the private sector.
It had been thought that the site, worth around £10 million pounds, would be provided to a local housing association at the discounted rate of £3 million to build social housing. There are now concerns about Islington’s schools being short of money if the council is not compensation for the land on which the old school building sits.
Writing on his website, Barry says:
“First the capital account for Islington schools is now short by 3 million pounds. This was the, rather conservative figure, that Islington had assumed would be available from selling the site, at a special low price, to a housing association. It might well have been more. Consequently all Islington schools will experience a further cut in capital allocations.”
Joe Caluori, lead member for children and families on Islington council, told Left Foot Forward that he was “deeply concerned” about having a free school “imposed upon us”.
“This school is a divisive and unwelcome imposition, and moreover taking the site from us will have a huge impact on us and our housing plans.”
Left Foot Forward approached the DfE about whether they planned to compensate Islington Council for the requisitioning of Ashmount Primary School but they declined to comment.
————————————————————- Update
A Department for Education spokesperson has now told LFF that:
“We have identified the former site of Ashmount Primary as a possible site for an approved free school and we are in contact with Islington Council about its use. However, no decisions have been taken and discussions with the proposers, council and local community are still in the very early stages.
“As well as providing high quality school places, the free school will drive up standards and provide greater opportunity and choice for local parents and children.”
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11 Responses to “Is Gove’s department about to hand a school site worth £10 million to the private sector?”
David Barry
Could LFF ask when discussions with the local community will begin?
There really have been none that I know of.
Geraldine Mitchell
So an Independent, Government appointed Planning Inspector agrees that there is no need for an abandoned school to be replaced, as the area has enough provision of school places. Said Inspector also approves the site for the building of much needed social housing. The council can make £3 million from the sale of the site, and the housing providers can save millions by using land not commercially priced.
Gove instead decides to build a school which is not needed, and grabs the land for free from the council, to give away to a private company. So no one in the community is being served?
Has this company also donated money to the Tory party? If a councillor were to behave in this way he would rightfully be arrested for corruption. Mr Barry the taking of Local Authority land without compensation is iniquitous; and if that land is going to be used by a private company for profitable gain, then the price of that land ought to be sold at the market price of land. Gove is behaving like some feudal Lord handing out public land like this. Please could you tell me a little more about his ‘recently aquired special powers’ to steal land like this.
I’ll desist from pointing out Goves obvious arrested developmental problems and anyway they are no excuse. This is blatant theft of public land for a useless ideological enterprise aka ‘asset stripping’ of land and buildings which have been bought and maintained by taxpayers for the public good.
Annie Powell
It’s pretty ominous that the Dep for Education doesn’t deny the possibility of gifting the land to a private party.
Susanna K
I live in the area affected. The serious issue, unmentioned in this and other articles, is that with the removal of Ashmount School there are now no schools nearby for our children to go to. Of the seven children I know about this year in the area, none got into a school in the area and two received letters from Islington Council suggesting a solution might be for parents to home-school! If the council had made any provision for the children in the area given the loss of the local school — for example altering the catchment area of other nearby schools, or guaranteeing places for a couple of years at the new location of Ashmount School, then I might have more sympathy. But since the nearest school to offer a place to children in the area was two miles away I feel the council have been very cavalier. Their claim that there is no shortage of schools in the area is simply untrue — and they know it!
archway
I am baffled by this posting. The Islington Schools Forum, which is not a political body, gets regular reports on the admissions position. I happy to be on that body (a school governor elected by other governors) and the situation is so completely contrary to what Susanna says…
There are no children without places in the area. The area divides into two parts, those to the East of the old ashmount site who are in the catchment for Coleridge School and Ashmount School, and those to the West who are in the catchment for Hargrave Park (which by the way is just over half a mile from the old Ashmount site.
Also Islington admissions simply say they do not write letters advocating home schooling. After all there is no reason for them to do so anyway. If Susanna K knows this parents could she ask them to forward copies of the letters to me, C/0 Ashmount Primary School N8?, because if they exist and are not the products of hear say, I would very much like to see them so I can take the matter up with Islington admissions
David Barry