Rumours abound as residents wonder whether their new local school will ever get built

As with any catastrophic event – the assassination of John F Kennedy, the death of Lady Diana – the decision to build new homes next to us was bound to bring out the conspiracy theorists. Still, when the head of the housing association that wants to build a school and 29 houses right bang opposite where I live is alleged to have said in a meeting, ‘Don’t worry about the school, it will never be built,’ you do wonder quite what is going on.

The theory doing the rounds is that the housing association wants to get planning permission to build the school and the houses but intends to build only the houses. People in my block of flats reckon they’ll stick temporary classrooms in the playground area, build the houses and eventually the idea of the school will be dropped and planning permission for more housing will be sought. Whether the community needs the school is a moot point, since the school that was on the site previously shut down because of falling roll numbers. This further adds to speculation that the school is being used to lever in high-density housing.

Apparently there is a covenant in the land registry deeds for the site that states that a proportion of the land must be used for educational purposes. But a temporary building used for a one-off evening class would, I imagine, constitute an educational purpose. The school is well versed in the use of temporary classrooms – it is presently illegally squatting a site in a nearby park and has a notice to quit by March next year. Mystery surrounds the faith school’s finances. It claims to have raised £750,000 for its new premises. This leaves it £9.25m short of what it needs to complete. Still, if the school is never to be built, does that shortfall matter?

Some aspects of our campaign are going well with huge and impressive input from residents. Local MP Diane Abbott is now involved and a meeting between her and the campaign group is going on as I write this blog. The council has called for more thorough daylight and transport assessments and another round of consultation and lobbying looks likely. The housing association and the architect are sticking to their guns. But so are we. The battle continues…

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