On the evening of Wednesday 22 May, Surrey County Council is holding a public exhibition of its plans to build a new primary school at Battlebridge Lane .
This should be a good opportunity to ask any questions you have about the proposed new school before the County applies for planning permission.
The exhibition is at Gatton Hall, Royal Alexandra and Albert School, Reigate, from 6-9pm. It’s not the easiest place to get to without a car – if anyone would like a lift please contact us and we will help if we can.
Councillors will get a preview of the plans this Wednesday and will be happy to share what we learn then.
In particular, we are looking forward to finally hearing why Surrey has selected this site, with its obvious disadvantages, in a Green Belt location. Particularly when there are more suitable sites, including a large underused school site, nearby. Until now, despite repeated enquiries about the site selection process, including under Freedom of Information regulations, all we have seen is a blank spreadsheet!
What’s the plan?
There is an acute shortage of primary school places in Redhill, made a lot worse by the building of 1,000 new homes in Water Colour and Park 25 in the last decade.
Surrey County Council wants to address this by building a two-form entry primary school on the field on Battlebridge Lane where the skate park is.
The site isn’t big enough to include playing fields so the proposal is to have ‘dual use’ of the adjacent recreation ground – ie it will be shared by the school and the public.
Meanwhile many Redhill families are coming to terms with being offered a place for their child at a temporary school in South Park, run by an academy trust. Many are understandably unhappy to have to be placed at a school three miles away about which they know nothing.
Cloak and dagger
We have written a number of previous posts on this subject, for example:
- Why Battlebridge? We challenge Surrey County Council’s lack of research into potential school sites (August 2012)
- Academy schools, what we think of them (November 2012)
- Redhill primary school: why the delays (March 2013)
A common theme running through all of these posts is the degree of difficulty involved in getting information from Surrey County Council about the school site selection process.
We hope the meetings on 15 and 22 May will finally shed some light on the process.
No time to waste
Redhill’s children need a new school – now! There really is no more time to waste. Let’s put pressure on Surrey County Council to build the best school in the best place, as soon as possible.
