The Fight Goes On To Save Sulivan Primary School.

Last night's special cabinet meeting

Last night, and rather predictably, the Conservative Councillors that form Hammersmith and Fulham's Borough Cabinet agreed again to close down Sulivan Primary School and hand the beautiful £20m site over to people behind the Fulham Boys School bid - some of whom key cabinet members coincidentally enjoy close associations with.

The Cabinet had been forced to meet and reconsider their actions after the Borough's Education and Children Services Select Committee overturned their decision in an unprecedented vote of no-confidence. So last night's meeting was more than a little tense for all those in attendance.

Under the Council's constitution, the leader of the council, is allowed to set the agenda and to choose who to allow to speak and who not to. Cllr. Nick Botterill (Con) decided on an approach that was reminiscent of this meeting.

There were four good deputations defending the school and one ill-advised and ill-informed deputation from New Kings School - which I am told New Kings undertook after a request from the Conservative Administration.

The absolute lack of questions from the cabinet to those that had taken their time to prepare thoughtful deputations was a further insight into the lack of interests any of them really had in finding a better way forward. Cllr. Botterill took the unusual step of banning the Borough's Opposition from asking any questions to the delegations - what he was afraid of, we can only guess?

Cllr. Caroline Needham (Lab) the Opposition's Shadow Cabinet Member for Education and Children's Services was the only person called forward from that committee to explain why Labour and independent co-opted members of the committee had rejected the Conservative Administration's plan. Nick Botterill gave a blunt "No!" when it was suggested that the committee might benefit having other committee members available to question too. Caroline gave a excellent performance - one deserving of the standing ovation she received.

Next, Cllr. Botterill wheeled out what he and his colleagues all clearly thought would be their pièce de résistance in persuading the viewing audience that Caroline Needham's position wasn't as good as their plan to close the school. Step forward one Cllr. Mark Loveday (Con) - the Administration's man for secret property talks in Cannes - on the French Riviera. I'm not sure if Mark imagined he was auditioning for the part of an overly aggressive, misogynist hack lawyer in a daytime television drama but if he was, he gave a masterful performance. The audience were genuinely taken aback.

In short this was, as is nearly always the case with this Administration, a done deal. The fight goes on and the determination to Save Our Sulivan is as strong as ever.

I do want to put on record and reiterate what Caroline Needham said in her speech about how much admiration I and everyone associated with this campaign have for Headteacher Wendy Aldridge and her team at Sulivan Primary School. Wendy has demonstrated dignity, humility and strength of character throughout while enduring the Administration's humiliating, dishonest, underhand and hurtful attacks. Her first response after the Conservatives reaffirmed their intention to close down her school was to comfort the distraught teachers and parents - many of whom were shattered by this latest knockback and in tears. The last thing Wendy said to me last night before shooting off home was very similar to the first thing she said when I first met her at the start of this campaign: "I just want to get back to the school now and make sure all the children are okay. I need to ensure they feel some sense of normality. They and their education are my priority."

Successive governments have striven for decades to discover the magic ingredient to a school's success. The answer isn't too far away. Sulivan Primary School's SATS results place it as 233rd out of 16,884 primaries in England. Boris Johnson (Con), The Mayor of London awarded Sulivan Primary the Gold Club distinction “recognising good work for disadvantaged pupils”. If anyone's looking for magic ingredients look at the courageous, compassionate leadership of Wendy Aldridge and her team. If you could bottle it, you could sell it for a fortune. That's just one of several reasons why this closure needs to be stopped and why my Labour colleagues and I intend to do everything possible to do that in the coming months.

Meanwhile...

 

Here's the text of the deputation Rosie Wait the Chair of Governors at Sulivan Primary School had intended to say but was cut off and halted from reading out in full:

"I expect that this is the last time that I will be addressing the Cabinet. It is important that I explain why we disagree with what you hope to do and why this process has been so deeply flawed–from start to finish. At the beginning the outcome had always been pre-determined by the Cabinet.

I still find it hard to believe that there isn’t a part of each of you that isn’t ashamed of how this has been handled. And when I say each of you, I mean the officials, Cllr. Cooney (Con), Cllr Binmore (Con) and I mean you Cllr, Nick Botterill (Con) and Mr Christie and Mr Heggs.

As a consequence of this consultation I and many others are totally disillusioned with the Council and its undemocratic practices.  I have been stunned by your practice of making inaccurate statements on public record that the likes of us cannot correct, on public record. The unprecedented recommendations of the Education and Children’s Services Select Committee however give you a way out of this shameful process. So vote for those proposals and Save Sulivan Primary School…

Last Wednesday, the Select Committee was presented with new evidence; key factors presented that this local authority was meant to have taken into account. Unbelievably, the line agreed by officials and the two cabinet members was that we had not presented any new evidence. You all dismissed it as out of hand.

We have taken the opportunity to circulate that same report, highlighting all the new information so that there can be no misunderstanding and confusion. There is lots of new evidence as you will see. Your Administration’s immediate response demonstrated once again your intent to close Sulivan School. Despite the declarations we have heard and will hear tonight we all know why. Because you, Michael Gove MP the Secretary of State for Education and the Fulham Boys School have all agreed that you want and will have our site.

Consider how this might look to any genuinely independent review:

The 4th July last year was the first indication we had that things were afoot when Ian Heggs emailed Wendy Aldridge requesting a meeting. By the time we met Mr. Heggs on the 9th July, Wendy had already spoken with the Head at New Kings who told her that Mr Heggs had insisted he didn’t tell her what the meeting was about.

That was the meeting where Mr. Heggs told us “We’re going to close your school.” Seven days later, on 16 July 2013, the formal consultation began.

Fulham Boys School took an active part in the consultation putting huge resources into getting people to submit that they wanted the Fulham Boys School .

But there are many more reasons why the Fulham Boys School  bid is central to this situation tonight; your refusal to remove the 970 responses from the Fulham Boys School supporters which bear no relation to this consultation, well if you did so you would be left with less than 300 responses supporting the closure of Sulivan and that would clearly not suit your determination to close Sulivan.

Eighteen and a half months earlier on 31st January 2012, Greg Hands MP posted a picture on his blog which I think was actually taken in 2011. It features Mr. Hands standing next to the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, the Secretary of State; Alex Wade of Fulham Boys School and his wife; two other founders and Councillor Helen Binmore.

In the accompanying article Greg says he “is calling on residents to get behind plans for a new Fulham Boys School.”

Twenty two months after that picture was taken Greg met with a school governor and representative on 20th November 2013. He stated and I quote “it had been extremely difficult to find sites for new schools within the Borough. I am aware that Fulham Boys School has looked at many sites over the last two years. I have personally tried to help Fulham Boys School  to find a site controlled by local or central government including the MOD site in Rylston Road, All Saints vicarage, All Saints School and The Moat School – none of which has proved suitable for FBS.” 

Greg Hands also co-incidentally sent out during the consultation period, weekly updates to his electorate supporting the Fulham Boys School and sewing doubt in the minds of local residents as to the actual numbers on Sulivan’s School roll.

So, we know that there was powerful support for Fulham Boys School going to the Secretary of State in the highest levels of government; we know that Cllr. Helen Binmore was there from the start and we know that Greg Hands in his own words “personally had tried to help FBS to find a site controlled by local or central government.” And we know you found it difficult finding a site.

On 24th January, four days after the Borough's Cabinet voted to close Sulivan, Michael Gove's wrote "The current Sulivan site will be improved and used by the Fulham Boys School". He was unseemingly quick off the mark because he didn’t wait for the statutory call-in process to take its course.

This is compelling evidence that the future of Fulham Boys School has always been central and directly connected to this process.  This leaves the rather farcical situation, where you the Council asserts Fulham Boys School is nothing to do with the present issue; that no decision on Fulham Boys School has been taken; and yet the Minister of State has announced that Fulham Boys School will improve and take over the site.

Why?

Here’s a better question: Exactly when from the time Fulham Boys School was first mooted in late 2011 early 2012 to when Ian Heggs first wrote to Wendy Aldridge on 4th July 2013 did all these important people settle on Sulivan Primary School for the Fulham Boys School site?

The conclusion any reasonable onlooker reaches on consideration of all of this is you all decided to close our school long before the beginning of the statutory processes and that’s why every shoddy aspect of this has been so determinedly focused on doing that...

• The early briefings to the head at New Kings;
• agreement to allow Fulham Boys School’s involvement in the Sulivan consultation;
• refusing to take evidence into account that didn’t suit your outcome;
• and using random unsuitable evidence from around the world that you imagined did.

The consultation was fixed!

And after the call-in you even tried to fix the select committee by ONLY asking Conservative members if they could attend, you did not even ask the Deputy Chair. You actually forbade officials from contacting independent co-opted and opposition select committee members to see if they could attend and you booked the first ever select committee to meet at 10.00am in the morning – in the hope that only your people would attend and you would have fixed the vote.

You tried to dismiss our 14 page document as containing nothing new despite it containing rafts of new information such as detailed analysis from Mayor Boris Johnson’s School’s Atlas that demonstrates how the polling districts immediately surrounding Sulivan are predicting between 21-30% increases in primary school age population. And you have provided no detailed financial response to the analysis that takes your financial case apart… I refer to your Revenue savings model which does not even refer to which year the identified savings will be realised.

Despite constant assurances to our teachers that they will all have jobs you propose:

• Cutting the combined teaching budget of £1.3m by £403,563
• Cutting the combined teaching support staff budget of £612k by £168k
• Cutting the Administration staff combined budget of £89k by £61k

So where does this all fit in with your claims to re-invest the savings into additional specialist teaching staff and new interventions?

The combined building maintenance budget is going to see a massive increase from £127k to £264k - what happened to your claim that there would be economies of scale by combining both schools on the same site?

Throughout this process there has been no reference to redundancy costs.  However, we see a combined increase in agency staff from £114k to £178k – are you expecting trouble?

At last week’s Council meeting we had to sit through Cllr. Donald Johnson’s (Con) lecture on how Council business is run very similarly to business.  Has he ever worked in the private sector?  If he had he would know there is no sense drawing comparison – he would know there would be some form of a triggering mechanism which would stop the Council from giving the Sulivan site which is conservatively valued at £20mill to the untried Fulham Boys School, a private company on a 125 year lease, with a peppercorn rental.

I could go on and highlight further concerns.  The figures as shown in Appendix J of the Council’s latest report supporting the closure of Sulivan are so unprofessional and so lacking in supporting documentation that it is hard to understand how the Council has repeatedly claimed that these savings, will be realised and as consequence are pivotal to the closure of Sulivan.

I speak as someone who has years of experience managing large moves and changes projects in the City.  I am staggered by the Council’s predictions that all the changes and the rebuilding can be achieved in one year.  I would suggest that this will take conservatively two years and as a consequence would have massive cost implications. 

Why is the 1st of August such a critical date– can you please explain this to us?

As I have stated earlier, this consultation is full of incompetence and conjecture.  You don’t have to continue in this direction.

You can find an alternative site for Fulham Boys School and the Borough can benefit from both schools -you can do the right thing and stop this now.

I urge you to listen to the Select Committee and take their advice and instruct your officials to implement their recommendations with immediate effect.

Right before the consultation started its formal process, I asked Nick Botterill to do the right thing, postpone the consultation and get all the relevant education people around the table to plan collectively the education provision in the south of the borough.  He refused.  He asked me to accept his word that he would make sure that the public consultation was a fair process with the opportunity for everyone to put forward their requirements and to debate them openly...

I suggest to Nick Botterill that he show us all here tonight that his word is worth having.

Thank you."

 

Rosie Wait

Chair of Governors

Sulivan Primary School: 233rd best SATS in England measured out of 16,884 primaries. Winner of The Mayor of London's Gold Club awarded for “recognising good work for disadvantaged pupils”.

Is There Such A Thing As A Free Lunch? H&F Conservatives Vote To Block Controls On The Generous Hospitalities They Enjoy From Hammersmith And Fulham's Most Active Property Developers

At the Full Council meeting on Wednesday 29th Jan, H&F Conservatives voted unanimously to block new rules that would “tighten protocols” and “halt councillors from accepting personal gifts and personal hospitality from businesses hoping to profit from decisions they might make or the influence they may be able to bring to bear on decision makers.” They also voted to block proposals that added the requirement “agenda and minutes need to be made of all meetings its [the Borough’s] councillors, officials and representatives have with businesses, their agents or their lobbyist when discussing issues pertinent to the Borough and those businesses. Those records will be made available for public scrutiny.”

My fellow Labour councillors and I called this vote after it emerged that many of Hammersmith and Fulham’s senior Conservative councillors had been wined and dined by many of the Borough’s most active property developers who are behind some of the most controversial local schemes.

No notes, minutes or records are kept of the conversations or agreements made during these and many other private meetings that take place many months and sometimes years before a planning application is even made available for public consultation.

 

Ask any local resident who has tried to engage with H&F Council on any major planning application how they feel? Ask them after they have spent weeks, working with their neighbours, giving up their free time and resources in the hope that the process might be genuine and they will actually be listened to. You get remarkably similar answers. I can't think of any such instance where people haven't come away angry, frustrated and with a very clear view that "it was always a done deal" which they had no chance of really changing.

 

So it hardly does much to restore faith in public life to discover that H&F's Conservative councillors have enjoyed lavish free lunches and free dinners, free trips to the Proms, free trips to polo events, free trips to watch cricket at Lords, free trips to tennis tournaments and more - all at the expense of developers or their lobbyists behind many of the most contentious schemes.

And these property schemes share more than just the disappointment of residents who feel their neighbourhoods have been blighted. Planning guidelines are sidestepped, a dubious planning mechanism is always used to ensure obligations to build affordable housing "Londoners can afford" are dropped and developers are allowed to go for maximum profits: H&F Conservatives have now approved more homes for overseas investors than they have for local residents.

 

Recently H&F Council officially acknowledged that it has lost the trust of the public over how it makes planning decisions when it interviewed for a senior planning official's role. I still have the presentations from those on the panel who were given the brief: "How they would rebuild the planning department’s reputation?" So it begs the question why H&F Conservatives voted to preserve all this unnecessary and distasteful hospitality?

While what H&F Conservatives are doing is likely to be lawful it is, at the very least, extremely poor judgement.

You can follow the link starting here for the “gifts and hospitality register” for each of the 46 Borough local elected representatives for this and previous years. You will need to click on the councillor you want to find out about and then click on their "gifts and hospitality" link.

 

Speaking in the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle Cllr. Mark Loveday (Con) explained how he thinks it's "scurrilous" that the Borough's Labour Opposition has even raised this as it is simply a "smear campaign". Er... No it's not.

The only reason this is still a news story is because Cllr. Loveday and his colleagues voted down our call to put a halt to this "hospitality" and the secret meetings. If the Borough's 31 Conservative councillors didn't like our wording they could have changed it by voting through an agreed amendment that we all could have signed up to - as has happened on different issues many times in the past. But they didn't do that.

 

Cannes at night. This exclusive resort on the French
Riviera was one of the first locations H&F Conservatives
chose for their private rendevouz with what became
some of the Borough's most active property developers
 

Cllr. Loveday will recall this incident which first demonstrated the vast number of secret meetings enjoyed by an active property developer before a controversial scheme even began the formal planning process. It has become indicative of how almost every large scheme has been dealt with by H&F Council since. Indeed, around that time Cllr. Loveday famously flew to Cannes on the French Riviera with the sole purpose of having secret meetings with many property developers about what H&F Council admitted was the Borough's most "contentious sites".

 

My Labour colleagues and I sometimes meet with property developers but those recorded meetings are always on behalf of our constituents to raises concerns about developments our constituents have asked us to raise often with our constituents also attending and only ever after the planning process has started. That's what we're meant to do and it's nothing like what the Conservative Administration are doing.

None of H&F Labour's 2014 councillor candidates have accepted any such hospitality and neither will they. The current approach to planning needs to change. Who believes there is such a thing as a free lunch - let alone a free slap-up dinner at a glamorous event?

All this free hospitality needs to stop. Records of all the Administration's meetings need to be made and then published and the planning process needs to be cleaned up with the public given access to much greater levels of information and new powers to call-in developments once discussions have started with the council. That's pretty much a summary of the pledge we will detail in our Borough manifesto and what I will ensure the new Administration does should I find myself leader of H&F Council after the May 22nd elections.

Select Committee Overturns Tories' Sulivan School Closure Plan And Sends It Back For Borough's Cabinet To Explain Serious Discrepancies

The Special Education and Children’s Services Select Committee met this morning to reconsider the Conservative cabinet’s decision to close Sulivan Primary School. The committee overturned the decision by majority of 7 to 6. It was the first time in Hammersmith and Fulham Council's history a Select Committee has ever done that.

The Borough's Conservative Cabinet will now meet at a hastily arranged Special Cabinet Meeting on 10th February where they are obliged to review the following recommendation and the papers submitted with it: 

"The Cabinet recognises the valuable contribution that Sulivan Primary School makes within its community and, in light of the various responses to the borough consultation, recommends:

1. that Sulivan school remains open and is supported by the local authority until the school becomes self-governing
2. that the Local Authority continues to support New Kings School on its journey to academy status
3. that the Local Authority offers its support to Fulham Boys School in finding a suitable alternative site for their school
4. that the Local Authority notes the significant flaws in the evidence used to make its original decision and in the decision making process as set out in this document.
5. that the Local Authority notes and takes account of the further evidence submitted in this document"

This is a small victory for the children, parents and teachers battling to save their wonderful Sulivan Primary School. The Conservative Administration now needs to come clean and explain why it is being so underhand in its determination to shut this school.

Consider that today's meeting was arranged after Conservative councillors privately consulted with each other to make sure they could all make this quickly arranged date and highly unusual 10.00am start - a time when no Select Committee has ever met before. And they actually instructed officials not to consult any independent co-opted or Opposition committee members to see if they might be able to attend. It is evident that the Conservatives were trying to fix the vote on this meeting in a way that, apart from being shoddy, stretches the legal boundaries of how a local authority is meant to operate. Unsurprisingly all the Conservative committee members were there.

But as the meeting started cabinet members Councillors Georgie Cooney (Con) and Helen Binmore (Con) and committee chair Cllr. Donald Johnson (Con) were all visibly stressed to see all the independent co-opted committee members and Labour's three committee members sitting there waiting to take a full part in the proceedings. Everyone supporting the school was therefore deeply grateful to Eleanor Allen, Michele Barrett, Sue Fennimore, Nadia Taylor, Philippa O'Driscoll, Cllr Caroline Needham, (Lab), Cllr Elaine Chumnery (Lab) and Cllr Mercy Umeh (Lab) who managed to change their schedules, take days off work and be there with the least possible notice.

Residents will now be able to make a deputation to next week's cabinet meeting. To do that they must fill in this paper which should be emailed here by 12.00pm Friday 7^th February 2014 and not a minute afterwards.

H&F Conservatives Forced To Back Down On Sickening New Stealth Taxes For Baby And Child Burials

On Monday night, H&F Conservatives had been planning to vote through a brand new charge of up to £1,692.00 targetted at grieving parents who wanted to bury their deceased child.

But a combination of the ever-diligent work of Cllr. PJ Murphy (Lab) and the excellent journalism of Camilla Horrox of the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle caused them to suffer 24 hours of panic before they decided to back down and drop the sickening new stealth tax just before the newspaper went to press.

Here’s what happened:

The Borough's leading Conservative councillors signed off their new charge plan which is how it got included in the budget plan. They then instructed officials to include the new charges in the 3rd February Borough cabinet report which was published two weeks ago. In the report they recommend that these “fees and charges are approved”. So it was all set to be voted through on the nod - just like all the other reccomendations the Borough's Conservative leadership has signed off over the last eight years.

There was in fact, no mention of this or any of the other new stealth taxes in the many budget briefings my colleagues and I have been given in recent weeks. These horrible new fees were tucked away in an obscure appendix amongst hundreds of other stealth taxes that the council now raises much of its funds from. But Cllr. PJ Murphy, the Opposition’s audit chief, immediately spotted them in Appendix F, Item 4 in the section titled “INTERMENTS - PRIVATE GRAVES.” These are the details you find there:

• NEW CHARGE Still-born babies and babies up to 30 days old: Resident £186.00. Non-resident £372.00
• NEW CHARGE Babies from 31 days old to children aged 12 years old: Resident £846.00. Non-resident £1,692.00

H&F Conservatives initially tried to pass this insensitive new stealth tax off as bringing Hammersmith and Fulham Council in line with what some “other councils do.” But it quickly became evident that this was going to be a front page local news story which was also likely to picked up by regional and national media and last week H&F Conservatives performed a panicked u-turn desperately trying to limit the damage to their reputations spinning that this was all a terrible “mistake” - a line that is evidently not true.

I am glad that we managed to stop this awful new charge before it was formally enacted. Once or twice in the past, when the only harm would be to local Conservative councillors’ reputations, we have let them go ahead and mess up - as they did when they voted to give themselves 18% salary rises. Similarly, back then, they had tried to say that was about bringing them in line with other councils but after three months drubbing in the press they dropped their new pay hikes and tried to tell an unbelieving public that it too was a “clerical mistake”.

There is something deeply troubling about the judgement and values of anyone who thought they could make a few quid out of what is easily any parent’s worst nightmare.

Apart from the tastlessness of trying to profit from grief there is the other question as to why anyone thought this was necessary? The Conservative administration waste vast amounts of money: such as giving away hundreds of millions of pounds in public land at knock down prices to property developers; or spending a staggering £5m a year on propaganda with vanity-banners, featuring pictures of Conservative councillors, hanging from the Borough's lamp posts.

You can read the Chronicle's take on this story here

Sulivan Primary School Deserves Better Than This

It was the Full Council Meeting last night. Nearly all of the meeting was taken up with H&F Conservatives' highly controversial decision to close Sulivan Primary School - recently graded the 233rd best out 16,884 in the country. My Labour colleagues and I urged all councillors to vote for this "motion":

"This Council congratulates Sulivan Primary School on the recognition received from both Boris Johnson, the London Mayor and David Laws MP, the Minister of State for Schools, in respect of the school’s excellent academic results. The Council supports the addition of a high quality secondary school in the south of the Borough but agrees that the excellent Sulivan Primary School should remain open and a new site found for the free school that does not involve cannibalising Sulivan Primary School".

Cllr. Georgie Cooney (Con), the Cabinet Member for Education moved a wrecking amendment which changed the subject and removed any reference to agreeing "Sulivan Primary School should remain open". That was voted through by a majority of Conservative councillors.

Then there was another vote on Sulivan Primary School. As reported, the Sulivan School closure has been called into the Borough's Education and Children's Services Select Committee.  This is the first time a call-in has ever been issued in the history of H&F Council. But Conservative councillors decided to book the meeting at a highly unusual start time of 10.00am next Wednesday morning. To put that in perspective, no Select Committee meetings ever happen at 10.00am. They're always at 7.00pm so the public and councillors can easily attend. Now consider that that Administration broke with long-standing custom and practice and did not ask Opposition councillors or co-opted committee members if this time or date would be suitable. Instead, they just went ahead and announced it after, I am reliably informed, they had consulted with enough Conservative committee members to ensure the committee would be quorate. So it is evident that they are deliberately trying to make it difficult for the teachers, parents and governors to attend and are clearly trying and fix the vote by also making it hard for opposition councillors and co-opted committee members to attend and vote. The Chair of the School's governors formally complained. Her request to change the timing was clearly reasonable. My fellow Labour councillors called a vote and presented the wording below.

Cllr. Stephen Hamilton (Con) a school governor at Sulivan Primary School had earlier expressed support for our first motion so we were all more than a little surprised when he slunk out of the room and failed to argue for or vote in favour of this:

"The Council notes with concern the email sent at 1.38pm today by the Chair of Governors, Sulivan Primary School to the Administration, which reads.

“I would like to formally register my complaint to the Council for the timing of the meeting. I have looked back over Council meetings and I have struggled to find any examples of Council meetings scheduled for the morning. I put it to you that this time has been selected specifically to make it difficult for both members of the Committee and the public to attend the meeting.  I would ask you to consider postponing the date and time, selecting a new date in the evening, as has always been the practice by the Council, when its officers, councillors and the public, have more opportunity of attending.  Do you think this would be a more democratic approach? I also would have appreciated the courtesy of an email to the Governing Body and the Head Teacher at Sulivan, informing us of the meeting, given the meeting has been called to discuss Sulivan Primary.  Another example of an unjust and at worst, flawed consultation process and administration by the Council. I hope you will consider my request and advise me of the date when the meeting will be rescheduled.”

Sewing as school's
future is debated

The Council urges Cllr. Donald Johnson, (Con) the committee chair, Cllr. Tom Crofts (Con) , Cllr. Charlie Dewhirst (Con), Cllr. Belinda Donovan (Con), Cllr Harry Phibbs (Con), Cllr. Matt Thorley (Con) to work with opposition and co-opted members of the Education and Children’s Services Select Committee in recognising the reasonable nature of this request, to consult with governors of Sulivan Primary School and other stakeholders to agree a more suitable time and date for the issues raised in the call-in to be properly considered".

The meeting finished late. Those members of the public that attended were very disappointed. Conservative councillors appeared uninterested in making any worthwhile points about Sulivan Primary School. Cllr. Helen Binmore (Con), the Cabinet Member for Children's Services didn't turn up despite being one of the people that engineered the closure. Many people complained that the Borough's Deputy Mayor Cllr. Adronie Alford (Con) was apparently engaged in embroidering a piece of cloth with what a member of the public identified as a picture of a cheetah. She was clearly uninterested in any of the facts presented about the school but voted with her Conservative colleagues on the school's future at every point throughout the evening.

Meanwhile, here are some children from Sulivan Primary School singing "Save Our Sulivan". They deserve better than this.

Conservative Councillors Agree To Turn Quiet Residential Avenue Into Route For 77 Foot Long Lorries Into Europe's Biggest Building Site

Larry Culhane, Cllr. Daryl Brown and Alistair Dixon of
Kensington Hall Gardens campaigning for a Council re-think

Earlier this month H&F's Conservative councillors voted through a plan to turn residential streets off the North End Road in West Kensington into the central 24 hour delivery route for articulated lorries and other heavy vehicles into what is planned to become Europe's biggest building site. Residents were more than a little shocked not to have even been consulted. In contrast, the developer was extensively consulted by our self confessed, "developer friendly Council".

The Council report can be read here on page 74. It details how:

• “Heavy vehicle access to the depot during the Earls Court development will be from Beaumont Avenue and emergency access will be from Aisgill Avenue.”
• “Large 77ft long articulated lorries will access/egress the LUL depot site approximately 6-9 times a day from Beaumont Avenue.”
• “Very long 99ft lorries will need to access the site approximately 4 times a year.”
• “There are also 60 parking spaces on the LUL depot site for transit vans that will need to access/egress the site throughout the day.”

This Wednesday, at the Full Council Meeting, Larry Culhane will ask the Leader of the Council to think again, work with local people and come forward with better proposals. You can read his question on page 474 of this report. My Labour colleagues and I will then vote to side with residents and overturn this decision.

This shouldn't be a party political matter. It's common decency for a local authority to consult residents and work things out with them - especially, in these circumstances.

The situation is best summed up by Alistair Dixon, the Chair, Kensington Hall Gardens residents association. He says “As you’d expect, I was astonished to learn the Council’s plans for Beaumont and Aisgill Avenues. This would bring intolerable amounts of extra traffic from heavy vehicles, we are told some will be as large as 99ft. The council has not properly considered residents’ needs or the danger of increased road accidents, extra noise, extra dust, extra pollution or damage to properties. They must stop this and I call for an immediate re-think”

We hope Conservative councillors will join my Labour colleagues and I to ensure these plans are voted down on Wednesday night. We will let you know how we get on.

Unprecedented: Borough Select Committee Calls In Conservatives' Decision To Close Award Winning Sulivan Primary School.

Last Monday’s decision by the Borough’s Conservative Cabinet to close the award winning Sulivan Primary School has been suspended after an unprecedented “call-in” issued on Friday by a majority on the Borough’s Education and Children’s Services Select Committee.

All four independent co-opted voting members of the Select Committee joined with three Labour Opposition councillors to produce a majority of one. The controversial closure will now be reviewed at an emergency meeting.

There is much that needs to be considered about the curious goings on behind all of this. Here's just two of the most important questions:

1. Why close a primary school whose latest SATs results place it as 233rd out of 16,884 primaries in England and put it firmly into the top 2% of schools in the country?
2. Exactly what does this closure have to do with the proposed Fulham Boys School (FBS)?

On Monday, Cabinet Members Cllr. Helen Binmore (Con), Cllr. Georgie Cooney (Con) and Cllr. Nicholas Botterill (Con) all claimed the answer to that last question is absolutely nothing. But here’s what we know:

• Sulivan Primary School has been set aside by the Conservative Administration as the site for the FBS.
• There was a well organised campaign during the statutory consultation on the closure of Sulivan Primary School to encourage people to write in and state their support for FBS.
• Conservative councillors agreed to count around 950 of those FBS statutory consultation responses amongst those they claimed were backing Sulivan’s closure in the report that was presented to the Borough's cabinet.
• Sulivan is the preferred site of those behind the FBS bid. On 24th November 2013, a council official wrote an email which stated: “I spoke to Alex Wade, the founder of the Fulham Boys’ School last week… He also confirmed that, should the proposals go ahead, he did not see your alternative plan as workable and that the clear preference of the Fulham Boys’ School governors and Head teacher would be for a new secondary school on the larger and more suitable Sulivan site.”
• Conservative councillors have taken legal advice: one on whether or not to publically declare a "friendship"; and two on whether to declare a “number of people they know” behind the FBS bid. They have been advised "this declaration is not a declaration of interests required under the code" and they have "no interest to declare". While nobody is suggesting anything improper has happened, we do now need to see a full list of all dates that elected representatives met with people behind FBS and discussed or referred to the bid or potential sites.
• Minutes from a meeting on 20th November 2013 with Greg Hands MP for Chelsea and Fulham, allege other excellent schools were also considered for closure so FBS could take their sites. The minutes state: “Greg commented that it was extremely difficult to find sites for new schools within the Borough. Greg was aware that FBS has looked at many sites over the last two years. Greg personally had tried to help FBS to find a site controlled by local or central government including the MOD site in Rylston Road, All Saints vicarage, All Saints School and The Moat School – none of which has proved suitable for FBS.”

It appears that the FBS proposals have absolutely everything to do with the proposed closure of Sulivan Primary School.

It is also apparent that the pupils, teachers, parents and governors of other Borough schools could have faced the same calamity as those currently befalling Sulivan with every likelihood that the Conservative Administration would have put up other similarly spurious reasons for closing them.

The seven Select Committee members who called in this decision appear to have done the Borough a very big favour. This is the first time any Select Committee has ever called in a cabinet decision. I know it won't have been done lightly. This is a summary of the reasons they gave:

• The Cabinet has not properly considered the school’s excellent performance.
• The Council have miscalculated the detrimental effect the closure will have on the children’s education.
• The Council effectively blocked attempts to increase the school’s numbers.
• The Council has misled the public during the consultation on the schools results, popularity and the reasons for its closure.
• The Cabinet has given undue consideration to the views, requirements and preferences of the founders of the Fulham Boys School.

It would be unwise for the Conservative Administration to play down this call-in or try to bulldoze the process through. It would also be a huge concern and raise questions about their credibility if the six Conservative councillors on the Education and Children's Services Select Committee (one of whom is the Conservatives' newly selected prospective parliamentary candidate for Hammersmith) failed to properly take up their responsibilities to look into and act on these matters.

If you'd like to write to any councillors on the committee please follow these links:

There's no good reason to mess with these
children's education

Conservative Select Committee members

Cllr. Donald Johnson, (Con) the committee chair, Cllr Tom Crofts (Con) , Cllr Charlie Dewhirst (Con), Cllr Belinda Donovan (Con), Cllr Harry Phibbs (Con), Cllr. Matt Thorley (Con)

 

Labour's Select Committee members

Cllr Caroline Needham (Lab) the committee vice-chair, Cllr Elaine Chumnery (Lab) and Cllr Mercy Umeh (Lab).

 

I was one of the people behind bringing the Hammersmith Academy to the Borough and I have been very impressed by the excellent West London Free School in Hammersmith. I think it is important to provide an additional, and high performing, secondary school in the south of the Borough but I do not believe this is any way to go about it.

 

It is highly questionable that anyone should think turfing very young children out of the wonderful Sulivan Primary School, or any other high performing local school, is reasonable or sets a good moral example for young people of what is a decent way to behave.

This Wednesday is the date of the next Full Council Meeting. It's a public meeting which you can attend and view the papers for it here.  Sulivan's parents, teachers and governors have submitted questions to Conservative cabinet members which you can read from page 475, 476, 477 and 478. My Labour Opposition colleagues and I are calling for a vote on the school and you can read what we're proposing on page 536.

It is ironic that the Conservatives', now suspended, decision to close Sulivan, was made almost a month to the day after the school received a letter of recognition by the Government's Minister of State for Schools. On 17th December he congratulated Sulivan Primary School on the “excellent performance of your pupils, particularly your disadvantaged pupils”. The Mayor of London also awarded Sulivan Primary School the Gold Club distinction, “recognising good work for disadvantaged pupils”. Those awards alone should have given food for thought. Now the Conservative cabinet have an opportunity to revisit their decision and do the right thing - which is keeping Sulivan Primary School open.

Over To You Now Boris After H&F Conservatives Force Through Unnecessary Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf Development

Will the Mayor call for a re-think on damaging
Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf Scheme?

Despite the public expectation that the Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf planning application had already been agreed by H&F’s Council leaders, there was still a palpable shock from the seventy or so strong audience, when all the Conservative councillors raised their hands in unison to formally give the go-ahead. The arguments for refusals and delay had been overwhelming. Now it falls to Mayor Boris Johnson (Con) to force a re-think. 

You can review the GLA's planning papers here. This is the team considering all aspects of the application.

GLA Planning Decisions Unit:

Colin Wilson, Senior Manager - Planning Decisions

020 7983 4783
colin.wilson@london.gov.uk

Justin Carr, Strategic Planning Manager (Development Decisions)

020 7983 4895

justin.carr@london.gov.uk

Lucy Bird, Case Officer

020 7983 5826

lucy.bird@london.gov.uk

If you'd like to also raise your concerns directly with the Mayor you can email him here: mayor@london.gov.uk.

This was just one of two of the Borough’s most important development schemes that went before a hastily arranged Special Planning Applications Committee (S-PAC) meeting just six days before Christmas. By 11.00pm there was still the BBC Television Centre application to start. I don’t think anyone seated around the Council Chamber believed the Conservative Administration's denials that they had insisted the Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf scheme was rushed through before the New Year in the hope that time would dull the memories of such a controversial approval long before May's local elections.

Here’s some of what we have learnt:

Loss of a community arts centre

The theatre and community arts facilities essential to the current Riverside Studios appear downgraded in the design. Instead, the media business interests of Riverside Television which also occupies the current site, appears to have been prioritised. While last minute changes had been made, planning officers admitted that negotiations were still on-going to deal with concerns about this. It obviously would have been better to conclude those negotiations to secure the community arts centre first, before granting planning permission and thus weakening the hand of H&F Council to strike the best deal. But that hasn't happened and many leading theatre luminaries are still not convinced.

Putting the profits of the developer over the housing needs of residents

If H&F Council is not yet not confident it has protected Riverside Studios as a community arts centre, why allow Mount Anvil and A2 Dominion to duck out of their planning obligations to build homes “Londoners can afford”? In fact, the developers have been granted permission to build luxury investment units targeted at speculators in China, Russia and the Middle East. That contravenes both the London and Borough's own planning guidelines and is reason enough for the Mayor to now block this planning application.

Another questionable viability excuse

All but one of S-PAC’s Conservative councillors admitted they hadn’t read the “independent viability report”. I guess they felt they knew what it would say as its conclusions were much like every other such report produced for H&F Council, predictably saying it isn’t viable to build the homes they are obliged to do which “Londoners can afford”.

 

So let’s consider what we know about this scheme.

 

We know A2 Dominion had purchased Queens Wharf for the knock down price of just £12.8m. We know H&F Council owns the freehold for the Riverside Studios. A2 Dominion told me that it would cost them about £25m to build their original Queens Wharf scheme. So we have a good idea of what it will cost to build across the whole site. Consider that the previous owner of Queens Wharf had paid well over £30m for the site alone.  Now consider how this planning permission spectacularly changes the value of the land at a stroke. It’s easy to understand how lucrative this project is for the business interests behind it and how badly the administration has negotiated on behalf of residents.

Meanwhile, according to Nationwide, Hammersmith and Fulham has seen property price rises of 25% during the year ending 31st January 2013. That's the fastest rise in the UK but H&F Council's assessment was based on inadequate valuations carried out months ago, last summer.

 

It is clearly possible to strike a much better deal that protects the arts centre and the neighbourhood.

Damaging the immediate neighbourhood and local businesses

Officials admitted that the removal of the theatre entrance on Crisp Road and replacement with large garage doors including a delivery depot would damage that neighbourhood.

 

Officials also admitted that it was likely that the newsagents, café and pub would lose business as footfall took alternative routes but said they hadn’t done any assessment of how badly those businesses would be affected.

The same officials indicated that the extra height, particularly viewed from Chancellors Street would be worse than what is there at present. To counter this they unconvincingly argued that there was a precedent for sticking a large ugly building at the end of roads containing residential housing near the river.

Damaging “the Borough’s most sensitive site”

On 3rd August 2011 a senior planning official told the PAC that the Queens Wharf site viewed from Hammersmith Mall and the west of Hammersmith Bridge was “the Borough’s most sensitive site”. It was therefore very odd that two years later none of the photo reconstructions that were shown to the S-PAC contained any image from Hammersmith Mall.

 

It also became apparent that there had been insufficient consideration of the heritage of the conservation area and the damage this scheme does to it particularly the aspects around Crisp Road and Chancellors Street. Residents alleged they had been told this had purposefully been left out to avoid spotlighting planning concerns. Officials denied this.

A remarkably cynical consultation

The developers’ consultation and approach to residents appeared cynical and uninterested. They refused to come to meetings or answer the most fundamental questions and even consistently refused to respond to allegations that the Remarkable Group, their consultation advisor, had been investigating local residents who had objected to their scheme.

Height, massing, density, affordable homes, un-neighbourliness

After nearly four hours it was clear that there were many reasons for this scheme to be blocked. In fact, H&F Council could have used these reasons below which are the exact same reasons they used to block the original Queens Wharf scheme in 2011:

“Inappropriate height and massing”

“Failure to provide a suitable affordable housing provision”

“Excessive density”

Lack of “residential amenity”

“Un-neighbourliness”

Harm to “the character and appearance of the conservation area.”

More time to fix the inadequate and rushed design
Lord Richard Rogers, one of Britain’s world famous starchitects, joined critics of the design. Along with film director Sir Richard Eyre, actress Francesca Annis, architect Will Alsop and others, Lord Rogers wrote to The Times on the day of the S-PAC to say: “We believe that there has been insufficient consultation for such an important site, next to the Grade II listed Hammersmith Bridge, and on this rare riverside location, in a development in which arts facilities look likely to play a secondary role to privately-run TV studios.” They called for a “more informed and constructive discussion about the future of this important arts centre”.

These views should have been taken on board but were bushed aside, with one Conservative councillor attacking Lord Rogers' views as being those of just another "Labour Party member.”

What needs to happen now?

I think everybody wants a good scheme to be developed across the two sites. One that protects the Riverside Studios as a community arts facility, adds to rather than damages the immediate neighbourhood and is good value for residents.

 

The only real deadline for planning permission is that Mount Anvil have a contract with A2 Dominion that says they need to have gained planning approval for their joint scheme otherwise A2 Dominion can go ahead and build the Queens Wharf scheme they already have  permission for.

 

The Queens Wharf scheme does not have any affordable housing in it. Instead, A2 Dominion have chosen to build luxury flats targeted at overseas investors. That is very peculiar because A2 Dominion are a housing association who are obliged to build and manage affordable homes. I believe we can get a better scheme agreed within any contracted deadline between A2 Dominion and Mount Anvil. But even if there are difficulties contracts an be re-negotiated and I find it hard to believe that any reputable housing association would push ahead with a its own project that not only ignores its responsibilities to tackle London's Housing Crisis but would kill any chance of maintaining a much loved community arts centre.

 

Mayor Boris Johnson needs to block this scheme and force the developers and H&F Council to think again.