Plan for extra Brighton and Hove primary school places thwarted

Labour and Conservative councillors voted together to thwart plans to force a popular Brighton primary school to take more children.

They said that Stanford Infant School was already overcrowded and that parents, governors and neighbours opposed the proposal.

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They added that more effort should be made to persuade the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to make some of the land at the neighbouring Highcroft Drill Hall available.

Cllr Ruth Buckley — Councillor Ruth Buckley

Councillor Ruth Buckley, a member of the ruling Green group, said: “This is all just showmanship and this is the part of politics I really don’t agree with.

“I’m really quite angry you’ve turned this into a political football.

“The 30 children who would have benefited from this expansion plan will now have to get on two buses to go across town.”

She said that in Port Hall Road, Brighton, “on one side they can get into Stanford – on the other side they can’t”.

Councillor Anne Pissaridou, a Labour member, and Councillor Andrew Wealls, a Conservative, worked together to defeat the Stanford Infant School expansion proposal.

At a meeting of the Brighton and Hove City Council Children and Young People Committee they insisted that the Greens heed the results of a consultation.

It found that out of 192 responses, just 22 were in favour of expanding the school from three to four forms of entry while 162 were against and 8 were undecided.

The main reasons for not supporting the proposal were

A lack of space on the school site both inside and outside
Road safety implications
It would be detrimental to the wellbeing of staff and pupils
The consultation process and the proposal have been rushed
The disruption that would be caused by building works
Concern over what happens when the pupils move to junior school
The undesirability of prefabricated huts

One parent, Sophie Lewis, of Chanctonbury Road, Hove, presented a petition with more than 600 signatures opposing the expansion proposal.

She said: “The need for additional school places (in Brighton and Hove) is undeniable and we do have enormous sympathy for anyone looking for a school place at the moment.”

She said that further expansion at Stanford Infant School would be “hugely damaging to the sense of community” at the school and its ethos.

She added: “Plans for the infants would have to be linked to plans for the juniors.”

Citing problems when Balfour Infant School grew but Balfour Junior didn’t, she said: “Let’s not repeat that mistake.”

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She said that we lived in a country that had set a minimum standard for the amount of space needed for cattle but not for children.

“Expanding popular schools with space is one thing but there has to be a better solution than overcrowding a school that is already short of space.”

The committee chairman Councillor Sue Shanks, a member of the Green administration, said that an expansion of Stanford Infant School would be linked to an expansion of Stanford Junior School.

She was reluctant to accept the possibility of Cottesmore adding a form of entry. She said: “Cottesmore is a Catholic school and not everyone wants to go to a faith school.”