School on Leyton County Cricket Ground?

ARE ALARM BELLS GOING OF IN YOUR HEAD?

If not …. THEY SHOULD BE!

If the local council gets its way and builds a school for over 1,000 pupils on the cricket ground, this area is going to change radically in the next few years — and not for the better!

· There will be two schools in this area with a total of 1700 pupils, almost tripling the current school population.
· Two schools whose pupils already seek each other out to fight will not have to travel far—they can meet in Brewster or Crawley Road for their rumbles!
· There will probably be more than three times the number of cars dropping off and picking up children at the beginning and end of the day as one of the schools will be for primary aged children as well as nursery, secondary and sixth form. This will cause problems with traffic, parking and noise.
· One of Leyton’s very few assets, i.e. the lovely area of open space surrounded by trees and with a historic, listed building on it, is under threat.
· It is proposed that the new schools will no longer be run by the local authority but by a trust, which will mean there will be fewer restrictions on what they do and how they do things in the future, if not straight away.
· There has been the minimum of information and consultation — the council doesn’t want you to know too much because they know you won’t like it!

They will try to tell you
· that this is the only way we can improve our schools. NOT TRUE. Other areas are receiving funding for schools from central government without being taken over by the private sector.
· that the cricket ground, trees etc. are safe. But do we believe a council who have tried so hard to keep important information from the local residents?
· that an ’all-through school’ for children aged 3-19 will improve their education! Well, try to find anyone who knows anything about education who will back that up. So far they have not provided any evidence that this is the case. In the USA where this has been tried, it has proved to be a mistake.

The consultation period ends next Monday 19th January.
The plans are on show at the SCORE centre on Oliver Road but if you want to see them you will need to ask someone. They are not easy to find. If you are commenting on the plans send your response to:-
Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners
14 Regents Wharf
All Saints Street
London
N1 9RL

OR

Why not write to the local paper:
Carl Brown
Waltham Forest Guardian
Guardian House
480-500 Larkshall Road
Highams Park
E4 9GD

OR

Write to one of our local councillors or MPs

Your letter does not need to be a work of art, have correct spelling or grammar or be written on nice paper — you only need to make your feelings clear about the proposals.

Don’t bother with a petition. The last time a petition was sent in
regarding another Waltham Forest school in a similar situation it was treated as if it was from one person instead of the number of people who had actually signed it.