Fr, Feb 3, 2006Group Photo this Saturday
Tomorrow Saturday 4th February, at 12 p.m. we'll take a group photo for the local press to highlight the availability of alternative sites for the new school.The appointment is in Elmira Street, in front of Lewisham Bridge Primary.
Please come down if you can and invite friends and family to join in for the most effective photo-shoot.
The site is very close to Lewisham Centre. Click here to see the map.
That is one of the sites that was initially identified in 2002 by the Council but immediately put aside following this advice to the Mayor:
The provision of a combined wet and dry leisure facility on Loampit Vale adjacent to the transport interchange is crucial to attracting the residential and office development needed to make the SRB funded scheme work, this only being possible if a developer is able to extract sufficient value from residential development on the other part of the site to close the gap between the £12 million cost of the leisure facility and the Councils contribution from the Aragon Tower receipts. A secondary school on the Lewisham Bridge site is likely substantially to reduce the value of the residential component of the site and jeopardise this project.
We investigated that advice and found it not to be too solid.
A school there would not be in front of the new developments but on the back streets and it can be argued that it is not likely to impact on the new development.
There is now a vast area that has been cleared and that would do a fantastic photo in support of our argument.
The Council could start to build a school there even tomorrow.
Yesterday we learnt that the Council has not yet closed the deal with all those involved in the redevelopment of the Sundermead Estate and therefore there still is an opportunity for a school to be included on that site without any change of plan.
That is not the only available site, but surely one that clearly exposes the Council's theory that the pool site is the only possible site as deeply fraud. ...read more...