Letter published in the Richmond and Twickenham Times from a local parent

What do you do when a consultation does not give you the answer you want? In the case of Richmond Council, the answer appears to be you ignore the result and pretend you never asked the question in the first place. Plans to redevelop Strathmore Special School involve selling the school's land and a third of the land at the adjacent Russell School for development and then rebuilding both schools on the smaller site whilst doubling the intake at the Russell. This will transform the character of the school and the local area. Not surprisingly many people oppose these plans. The consultation asked 3 questions including whether people supported the specific plans for the Russell. Yet when the results were published last week there was no mention of the third question  although I can have an educated guess what the answer was.

Name and Address Supplied

Petition - still time to sign

The petition against these proposals now has over 200 signatures but there's still time to sign. Follow this link where you can electronically sign the petition against these plans. Every name counts!

The Campaign Goes on

As you may have heard,the Council has ignored the myriad of objections from local people and the vote of Russell School parents against the scheme, and proceeded to formal consultation.

The local community can now write with their objections to the proposals, and we will be posting some of these objections on this blog. Please forward anything you would like posted to parentsinpetersham@gmail.com

Here is the first, from Ian Neal

                                                                                                                                                                                    May 10 2013

Formal objection to the proposal to develop the Strathmore Special School

As a local resident and parent of a child at the Russell and Grey Court, I wish to object to the proposal for the Strathmore Special School in the strongest possible terms on the grounds that

·       Insufficient evidence has been provided on the different choices and their relative merits that were considered during the development of this proposal: For example, which other sites were considered; the relative merits and costs of developing Strathmore on a single site versus a multiple site provision; the different methods of financing the development that were considered, etc.

·       Misleading and insufficient information and publicity on the proposals during both the informal and formal consultations which meant that many local residents or parents were unaware of the developments, their true nature and the impact it will have on the Russell School and local residents. The Ham and Petersham Society were not informed or consulted. The lack of publicity and awareness of the proposal is clearly demonstrated by the fact that only 14 people attended the informal consultation meetings, whilst over 100 attended the Russell School meeting

·       Insufficient evidence that the borough requires 96 special school places. Enrolment data over a 3 year period demonstrates very little.

·       The significant negative impacts of the development on local traffic congestion and parking including traffic generated as a result of selling land for residential development and doubling the student intake at the Russell

·       The significant negative impacts of the development on the amount of play space and unique character of the Russell School as a result of selling a third of the land, doubling the Russell School intake and incorporating Strathmore at the Russell.

·       Deliberate efforts to keep the true nature of the development from Russell School parents and governors until the last possible moment, including instructions to staff not to mention the development to parents and governors and governors only being informed during the informal consultation and even then without any specific details of was planned. There is a recording of the meeting for local residents called by local councillors. At this meeting current governors (and parents) are clearly heard expressing this view and their outrage at the lack of transparency and honesty. Similarly at the Russell School meeting on 31 January a recording was made and similar views were expressed. A clear, overwhelming majority of views at both meetings were critical of the proposal or challenging the lack of information provided.

·       Extremely misleading and prejudiced communications by Nick Whitfield throughout including the information in this proposal document.

·       In 7a of the proposal only the meeting on Feb 11 is mentioned when actually 4 meetings were held. In 7b, the presentation and FAQs document are provided as evidence of minutes, yet these in no way accurately communicate the true nature of these meetings and the views expressed at them as can easily be demonstrated by listening to the recordings made. These recordings can be shared by audio file is required.

·       The details of land sales at the Russell were only placed on the council website after it was apparent that the plans were placed on the internet by opponents of plans to sell Russell land and one week into the consultation process. The FAQs document in no way accurately and impartially communicates the questions raised and the views that were expressed

·       The formal consultation offered no opportunity to express viewpoints so those people opposed to the proposal had no opportunity to explain why, which rather limits the point of a consultation.

·       The formal consultation had 3 questions, yet the council website currently only mentions two

“The second deciding factor is in connection with the outcomes from the formal consultation. The responses to the two primary questions, namely do you agree or disagree with the proposal to invest further in SEN in Richmond schools and do you agree or disagree with the proposals to move Strathmore School to a multi site school, both resulted in more than 50% of respondents indicating that they were in agreement.”

The fact that a narrow majority (51%) agreed with the proposal to move Strathmore School to a multi-school site, in no way shows that a majority of people are in favour of the specific proposal for developing the Russell School and in particular the contentious proposal to sell land at the Russell to developers for housing (which will impact local residents) whilst doubling the entry at the Russell.

It is strongly suspected that the results of the third consultation plus an honest communication of the views sent to the council on this matter would show a clear and overwhelming majority opposed to the specific plans for the Russell School.  This is partly based on the support of 209 local residents who have signed an online petition that opposes plans to sell land at the Russell. This is despite the petition receiving only minimal publicity. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dont-sell-off-school-land-in-petersham/signatures

The comments of some of these signatories far more accurately communicates the reasons why people oppose this proposal than is stated in 7c.

I therefore formally request the results for the third question and if it does show a majority against the specific Russell School plans, an explanation as to why these results were not included in 7c ‘The Summary of the Formal Proposal’.

There are elements of the proposal I support. However based on the facts laid out above I oppose the proposal and wish to formally complain about the professional conduct of Nick Whitfield in relation to his management of this fundamentally flawed consultation process and his intentionally misleading representation of the results in this proposal document,

Sincerely

Ian Neal