Make a bid – Advice to Michael Gove on Belsize Park hostels

Published: 30th June, 2011

LABOUR chiefs say decommissioned hostels in Belsize Park can still become a new primary school – but only if education secretary Michael Gove stumps up the cash to buy them.

Finance boss Councillor Theo Blackwell said the Town Hall’s straitened budget meant the council needed the money from the sale of hostels in Frognal, which the New Journal revealed earlier this month were being marketed by estate agents.

Questioned by Lib Dem councillor Tom Simon on why Camden was pressing ahead with the sale to private buyers when parents wanted the hostels to become a new primary under the government’s free school programme, Cllr Blackwell said the Department of Education can enter the bidding process for the buildings along with other interested parties.

“There is ample time to put forward a bid and if Michael Gove was to come to us and write us a cheque for £8 million that would be welcome and we could talk,” said Cllr Blackwell.

Campaigner Jill Barnes said yesterday (Wed): “The shortage of places is a serious issue, with 123 four-year-olds in Camden without a place at a school for September. 

“We are trying to open a school in the Belsize and Swiss Cottage area to help deal with this problem and all the council seems to do is stand in our way. We need a new school, not more luxury flats.”