Deliver UCL Academy on time!

Published: 12 August, 2010

• IT was great to get the good news that the government has given the go-ahead for the UCL Academy, the new Swiss Cottage Special School and the new South Camden Community School!


As the executive member for schools from 2006 to 2010 I worked extremely closely with Camden’s officers, UCL, staff and governors at Swiss Cottage, Jack Taylor and SCCS and am delighted for all of them that their hard work has been rewarded.

I am also thrilled for the families who will benefit from the provision of the eight additional secondary school forms this will bring to Camden.  

We had to fight off two judicial reviews and work frantically to secure a future for Frank Barnes School along the way, but it was definitely worth it. Now the Labour council must deliver these new places on schedule. 

That means the academy should open in September 2011 to its first Year 7 students.  

It was always going to open in temporary accommodation. No excuses please; just steer the project home on schedule and within budget.

At the same time, of course, we await with interest the announcement over how future rebuilding schemes will be decided. I was as disappointed as everyone else to lose the rest of our Building Schools for the Future programme but we must use all the work which has already been carried out to our advantage whenever the new guidance is announced. 

We must also not forget either the need for new primary school places in the north of the borough or for a new secondary south of Euston Road.

It would be good to see Camden exploring ways to use the new free school proposals to the advantage of local families rather than sitting on its hands and pretending the change isn’t happening.
Cllr Andrew Mennear
Conservative, Frognal & Fitzjohns ward

Blame for the delays

• WHILE it’s good news that the government had signed off the new Swiss Cottage academy after a month of uncertainty, this doesn’t mean that Education Secretary Michael Gove has done right by Camden. 

The additional secondary school will be very welcome in Kilburn and South Hampstead, but let’s not forget that there are existing secondary schools throughout the borough which were going to get money for refurbishment and improvements and will now have to go without. 

Let’s be clear, if it wasn’t for the ham-fisted way in which the previous ConDem council we had here in Camden had gone about Building Schools for the Future, the story may well have been very different. 

By thinking they could kick Frank Barnes School for deaf children (of which I’m a governor) off its site and failing to make any provision for the school’s future, they provoked a huge row which dogged the administration for all its four years. 

Eventually we wrung out of them good provision for a safe future for Frank Barnes, but the old Lib Dem and Tory executive’s intransigence and recklessness surely cost the whole BSF programme for Camden in terms of delaying its progress.  

Had they not put all their eggs in one basket by prioritising the academy, existing secondaries like Hampstead School might have had their funding signed off by now, rather than having to go without. 

Michael Gove is making great play about the bureaucracy of the BSF process.

In our case blame for the delay must be put down to the last administration’s dogmatic approach. 
Cllr Mike Katz
Labour, Kilburn ward

Fitting tribute

• ONLY a month has passed since the future of South Camden Community School was thrown into confusion by the possible ending of the Building Schools for the Future programme. 

SCCS has now been told it will be one of only a handful of schools to proceed. 

With building work due to start in only a few weeks, the clear need for new forms of entry at the school and the money that has already been spent combined to make a strong argument for an exception to be made.

The government recognised the merits of the case put by the senior management team from the school and Camden’s education officers. 

Congratulations to all of those involved. They will shortly start to see new buildings rising up in testament to their hard work. It will be a fitting tribute.
Timothy Barnes
Governor, SCCS Deputy Chairman, 
Holborn and St Pancras Conservative Association
(In a personal capacity)

Green light

• LIKE many residents in Swiss Cottage I was delighted by the coalition government’s decision to officially green light the UCL Academy in Adelaide Road, pioneered by Camden’s own coalition government over the last four years.

The shortage of school places in our area has been a weight around the necks of everyone throughout the community. 

When I was canvassing during the election in May, countless numbers listed it as one of their most immediate concerns for the area.

I only hope the current crop of councillors devotes as much time and energy into lifting that weight as the last did. 

I look forward to seeing the school take its final steps to completion.
Tony Koutsoumbos
Goldhurst Terrace, NW6