Building fit for school

Published: 5 November, 2010

• JAMES Dunnett writes again in defence of the current Ashmount School building (Is this listed school safe? October 29). He refers to it as “an excellent existing building”. Those of us with experience of the place know that it is neither fit for purpose as it stands nor, as the report commissioned by Islington Council shows, can it be made fit for purpose.

This raises a serious issue of general interest. As the building is neither fit for purpose nor can be made so, in what could its excellence consist?

Are we to conclude that for Mr Dunnett architecture is really  a branch of abstract sculpture, or even a form of conceptual art? (He so often refers to the original plans for Ashmount rather than the building we actually have.)

At any rate, the school is to move, and I as a local resident a few yards from the site, both of whose children went through the school, will be sorry to see it go (though it’s not going that far). 

But given that we were not to be allowed to lay a finger on the  building, what else could be done?

Anyway, at least we will have a building fit for the good school (despite everything) that Ashmount is. And the new site at Crouch Hill is magnificent.

DAVID BARRY
Chair of governors, Ashmount School and Whitehall Park area resident