‘Boutique school’ jibe angers Belsize Park parents - Group wants to transform vacant council-owned hostel into 'free' primary school

Published: 24 February 2011
by JOSIE HINTON

PARENTS behind plans for a new free school in Belsize Park claim they have been unfairly cast as a group of wealthy families seeking to set up a “boutique” primary for their children.

Those involved have applied to the Department for Education to transform a pair of vacant council-owned hostels into a one-form entry primary school under the controversial free school legislation. 

It is hoped the school could be up and running by 2012, opening with three classes.

But Labour finance chiefs argue the proposal would siphon off cash from existing schools by disrupting a plan to sell the buildings in Fitzjohn’s Avenue and Maresfield Gardens and use the income to fund a backlog of repairs to Camden’s existings schools.

The Department for Education (DfE) – which cancelled more than £170million of grants for Camden’s schools last year – would pay for the refurbishment of the hostels if the parents’ application was to be granted. 

Labour finance chief Councillor Theo Blackwell has upset the parents by using the term “boutique” and has questioned whether the project represents the best use of limited resources when many of the borough’s schools are in dire need of repairs.

Parents, who have been calling for a new school since they struggled to find places for their children two years ago, have accused the council of dismissing them as a “privileged few”.

They have drawn up a map showing 1,000 council homes in Belsize which fall into a “black hole” between primary schools.  

Leila Roy, whose son attended the temporary Courthope Education Centre, set up in a church hall for children without a school place, said: “Calling this a boutique school is completely inappropriate – this would be a diverse and secular primary serving the entire community.

“The fact that Belsize is also home to people of means should not mean that the entire ward be discriminated against and the needs of its less privileged residents be dismissed for broader political reasons. 

“Most of us now have school places for our children and are doing this so other families don’t go through what we went through. 

“There are hundreds of other less vocal families for whom this campaign proposes to address the school shortage issue.”

Cllr Blackwell said it was impossible to get away from the fact that the plans would not benefit the majority of children in Camden.

“We are talking about a small number of children in a particular part of Camden,” he added. “I’ve never said this was exclusively a group of wealthy families, but it is a small group.

“We’ve got to see how each pound of taxpayers’ money is best spent, and it is my view that it is best spent on the majority rather than the very few.”

The council is planning to create “bolt-on” classes to deal with the school places crisis over the next five years, until a new school is opened in Liddell Road, West Hampstead in 2015.