tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post3118728920245100311..comments2023-08-16T12:07:22.995+00:00Comments on The Daily (Maybe): Interview: Alan Duffell. A Green Mayor for Tower HamletsJim Jeppshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17410387006098326671noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-67052003792220262602011-03-04T01:39:52.345+00:002011-03-04T01:39:52.345+00:00People of Tower Hamlets I wish to inform you that ...People of Tower Hamlets I wish to inform you that while you are suffering severe cuts your councils wastes £10Million on a project that is totally unnecessary and is not even in your borough. The project is to rebuild a school in East Sussex that does not need re-building.<br />The reason given for demolishing the school are not obvious or at all convincing in the light of the cut backs that is happening on their own doorsteps.<br />For example, the main reason given by Tower Hamlets planners is that the children should sleep in one building and go to school in the other. Compare that to the hardships that will come with the proposed cuts.<br />The project that I am referring is the Bowden House School (BHS) owned by Tower Hamlets and located in 12 acres of beautiful countryside very close to the South Downs National Park near Seaford. East Sussex. BHS is a vast and beautiful building and in very good state of repair having had almost unlimited money spent on it in the past. It is, however, undersubscribed.<br /> With only 27 EBD children (the school has a capacity of 38) presently at the school the cost per child must be the highest of any in the BSF program. The running costs are also very high mainly due to the fact that the children have to be taken individually by taxi and the need for more than 2 Staff per child (i.e. 56 staff). Tower Hamlets are pushing ahead with a redevelopment which will cost approximately £10 million and which will cater for 40 (only 2 more) children. <br />BHS is also unique in the in the BSF program because it is a school development that very few people want, for example:<br />Local residents at Seaford do not want a new school (300 protest letters); the Lewes District Council voted 7 to 1 against it; our MP Norman Baker did not want it; the bats and badgers do not want it because they lose their home; the environment does not want it because of the carbon footprint required for a new build is equal to about 20 years of the energy running cost of school; the children of the school do not want it -if the old boys Face book web site is anything to go by; Sport England have objected to it -because it builds over nearly 50% of the present playing fields.<br />The benefits given by a new school are also not so obvious because it is far more institutional rather than the present school that was described as “homely” in one Ofstead reports. The children may well have a problem with the new school since it has been stated by TH that one reason for having a new building is to have more control over the children by making it more easy to shut -off corridors -but this is a school for EBD children not criminals.<br /> If you ask me I can send you some photographs of BHS so that you can see what a waste it would be to demolish it.Alan Weinberghttp://a.weinberg@sky.comnoreply@blogger.com