Sutton’s school plans were plunged into chaos on Friday, as without warning Liberal Democrats councillors pulled the plug on the new high school near Rosehill, apparently in an attempt to cover up an £8m financial blunder.
The decision leaves Sutton with no agreed site for a new high school, which must open by September 2017. The council’s own estimates are that a school will take between 2 and 3.5 years to complete, meaning the deadline has already passed. Sutton’s last new high school, Stanley Park, took 5 years from acquiring a site to opening its doors.
The Conservative Opposition Group on Sutton Council is requesting an emergency Full Council meeting, to force the ruling Liberal Democrats to publicly explain their extraordinary behaviour.
In November 2014, Sutton Council accepted that two new high schools will be needed, the first in 2017 and the second in 2019. Each will need to take 240 new pupils per year. The council identified two sites: the derelict all-weather pitch at Rosehill; and part of the old Sutton Hospital site in Belmont. The Rosehill site is already owned by the Council, the Belmont site is owned by the NHS.
In March 2015, Sutton Council paid £8 million for part of the Sutton Hospital site. This was despite its own report warning that the land identified was not big enough, a mistake confirmed in June when the Department for Education (DoE) refused to fund a school there stating that it was just 1/5 of the required size.
Given the unsuitability of the Belmont site, all parties agreed to proceed immediately with the Rosehill site. It remains unclear why the council paid £8m for such a small piece of land, or why the deal negotiated with the NHS restricts the Council’s ability to use this land other than for a school.
On 18 September 2015 Sutton’s Liberal Democrats cancelled the Rosehill school plans, insisting that the DoE fund the new school on the unsuitable Belmont site but admitting that this stand-off “may set back the timetable for the new secondary school”.
The Council’s own school expansion report from March 2014 states that 1) acquiring a suitable site is “of utmost priority” and 2) given the lead time of 2 to 3.5 years and the need to open in 2017, “the window for acquiring a site is starting to close” – that was 18 months ago. Sutton Conservatives warned of this risk at the time, both during the May 2014 local elections and may 2015 general election.
There is now a serious risk that 240 Sutton pupils who are currently just starting year 5 will be left without a school place in year 7.
Coun Tim Crowley, Leader of the Opposition, said: “Sutton’s Lib Dems have decided to play a reckless game of chicken with the Department for Education: by refusing the Rosehill site they are gambling that the department will blink first and build in Belmont. They seem desperate not to admit they’ve wasted £8m buying an unsuitable plot of land that they now can’t do anything else with.
“The Rosehill site must proceed as a matter of urgency, or hundreds of pupils risk being left without a school place in 2017.”
Paul Scully, Conservative MP for Sutton and Cheam, said, "Parents of 9 year-old children in Sutton must be so frustrated to see Sutton's Liberal Democrat councillors playing politics with their children's education. Persisting with jamming a school onto the Belmont site that every study has said is 1/5th of the required size, is foolhardy in the extreme. Unless the council see sense, there is a real possibility that they will not meet their own target to open a new school by September 2017 which will lead to children without a secondary school place in the borough.
"The council has got ahead of itself, spending £8m of taxpayers' money on a poor choice of site and now need to save face. They have stated that 'it might be necessary to consider developing the [Rosehill] site in the future if a further school is needed', pushing the decision beyond the next council election rather than sticking to their environmental line and dismissing the site entirely."
Timeline of failure:
March 2014 - Council’s Secondary School Expansion Plan contains clear warnings of the urgency of finding a site and the 2 to 3.5-year lead time. Relevant section is on the last 2 pages, “Site(s) for a new secondary school and their governance”. http://sutton.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s31302/School%20places%20append…
November 2014 - Sutton Council states that two new schools are needed, to be built on the derelict all-weather pitch at Rose Hill, and on part of the former Sutton Hospital Site in Belmont. One to open in 2017, the second in 2019. See press release: http://www.newsroomsutton.co.uk/?p=917
March 2015 – Sutton Council pays £8 million for part of the former Sutton Hospital site, expressly to be used as a school. Claims to have carried out a feasibility study which confirmed the viability of the building a school on the site. http://www.newsroomsutton.co.uk/?p=1406
Also, as reported in the Sutton Guardian: http://www.suttonguardian.co.uk/news/12868493.NEW_SCHOOL____8m_land_dea…
June 2015 – The Education Funding Agency, part of the Department of Education, confirms that the Belmont site is too small, but clears the Rosehill site to proceed. This is now Sutton’s only viable new school site. As reported in the Sutton Guardian: http://www.suttonguardian.co.uk/news/13328892.Rose_Hill_revelation___MP…
September 2015 – Sutton Liberal Democrats announce they will not allow the first school to be built at Rosehill, leaving plans in chaos.
September 2017 – A new school needs to open in Sutton to accommodate 240 pupils moving into year 7. This will take 2 to 3.5 years to build, but less than 2 years are left to build it and currently it does not even have a site.