"After the Central
& South Planning meeting on 5th March 2013 no one should be in any doubt
that the Labour Group in Hillingdon believe that every child in Hillingdon
deserves a decent school place and that where we differ from the Conservative
administration is that we consider our parks, open spaces and common land to be
priceless, whereas they consider them to be worthless.
Petitioners, Ward
Councillors and John McDonnell MP highlighted different aspects of why the
Green Belt site of Lake Farm Country Park and Botwell Common should be
protected from development. There were
strong arguments put forward that demonstrated that the additional school
places required could be provided without the need to build a new school on
this site, if the political will was there to do so.
Objectors mentioned
the proposals for a new 4 form of entry primary school at the nearby Guru Nanak
Academy and a proposed new 2 form of entry primary school at Hewens College,
but the committee did not take these into consideration.
Other suggestions
that were offered up for consideration, and also turned down, were to allow
Rosedale Primary school to expand and also to make use of the old Hayes
swimming pool site that the Council is selling off to a property developer.
So the decision to
plough ahead with proposals to build on this piece of common land in the Green
Belt comes down to a political decision made by the administration, based on
the fact that they own the site, so the land will cost them nothing.
After the meeting Cllr Peter Curling, Leader of the Labour Group, said
“As the meeting went
on it became very clear that the additional primary school places equating to 3
forms of entry could be accommodated without the need to pour concrete over
Lake Farm Country Park.
We, in the Labour
Group, fully sign up to ensuring that every child has a decent school place and
tonight it was demonstrated that this could be achieved without the need to
destroy Lake Farm, so the proposal to build a school there is clearly driven by
a political decision, rather than educational need.
What we are seeing is a Tory administration cashing in on the sale of Brownfield sites and then building on Green Belt land within their ownership. This is more to do with money than children's education, and it shows that the Tories consider open Green Belt land to be worthless, whereas we consider it to be priceless.”
