Primary kids need places

Published: 2 December, 2010

• FIRST the good news.

Labour’s proposal for a new 60 pupil/year primary school on Liddell Road, West Hampstead, shows that they have finally accepted there is a genuine need for additional primary school places in the north west of Camden and this proposal should help families in NW6 who would otherwise find it difficult to secure a reception class.

The bad news is that this will be no help at all to families worried about primary places in Belsize Park and elsewhere in NW3 where the problem is just as pressing.  

I imagine the proposal will also not be welcomed by both Kingsgate and Beckford primaries, as the proposed new school is right between them both and so is likely to attract families who would have gone to both of them.

This will, of course, free up places for other families. However it is much more likely that these places will be taken by children from Brent than from Belsize Park, and Camden will still be left with an additional demand for at least 30 primary school places a year.

So it’s not the right solution. What they should do is to build a 30 pupil a year school in West Hampstead at 156 West End Lane, as part of their development there. Even moving just a little bit further towards Finchley Road will provide a better outcome than Liddell Road.

Then the council should embrace the government’s Free Schools policy and work with local groups to enable a new 30 pupil/ year school to open up on a smaller site east of Finchley Road. If Camden is looking to set up a maintained school it seeks the largest possible site (for example, Liddell Road). Local groups would have the support of government to look at smaller sites and Camden should work with them.

Unless Labour opens its eyes to parents’ aspirations and works with the direction of the government’s policies on education then there is little sign of a solution to the shortage of primary school places in NW3.

CLLR ANDREW MENNEAR
Conservative, Frognal & Fitzjohns ward