I have secured a debate in Parliament on 4th November to discuss the school place crisis in Sutton directly with a Minister from the Department for Education.
If a new school isn’t ready by September 2017, more than one hundred children currently age 9, risk finding themselves with no school place in just two years’ time. The situation gets worse in 2018, with 16 forms of entry needed, so nearly 500 children will be without a school place unless two new schools are ready. I am calling for immediate action to be taken so our children have a good local school to go to, and a bright future ahead of them.
In government we’ve taken the Local Authority out of education, leaving it to the experts – the teachers. The only thing Sutton councils has to provide is Special Educational Needs facilities and school place planning – and they can’t even get that right!
The Sutton Hospital site is only a fifth of the size needed for a new school in Sutton. Sutton’s Lib Dem Councillors are playing politics with our children’s future and are trying to cover up their financial blunder of spending £8 million on a site that every study shows is desperately inadequate.
Before the election I made it clear that I wanted a new school to go on the site of the disused all-weather pitch on Rosehill, which was supported by Greenshaw Learning Trust who have been charged with building the school. In a display of shocking behaviour, Sutton Council abruptly ended negotiations with them over this site, which is not only big enough, but is also in the area of the Borough where school places are needed most.