South Bucks District Council Planning Department does a U-turn again

Khalsa Secondary School, Stoke Poges - South Bucks District Council Planning Department does a U-turn again

The recent report published by Richard Regan of South Bucks District Council's planning department, recommends a refusal to the planning committee on the grounds of too much noise due to the occasional weekend activity of children playing football matches with other children from local schools and the noise generated from an annual summer fete.

On the issue of noise, the previous report from Richard Regan for a school planning application, stated that:

"Upon reviewing the application and the noise management statement, the Council’s Environmental Health Department raise no objections or concerns on this matter. In light of these comments, it is considered that there would be insufficient grounds to justify a refusal on adverse impacts on neighbouring properties as a result of noise created by the use of the site as a school"

This new report for the Class K application states that:

"Based on the current noise management plan, we do have concerns that there will be some impact on local residents. These concerns mainly relate to weekend activities, such as football matches and fetes which we feel would result in an intensification of local noise sources, and as such would be likely to lead to complaints from local residents. Therefore, the generation of noise will adversely affect the amenity of local residents contrary to policy EP3 (f) of the South Bucks District Local Plan (adopted March 1999)". He fails to mention what the Environmental Health Departments view is this time, from which we conclude it still has no concerns to raise.

On the issue of traffic, the previous report stated that "....As such, it is not considered that there would be any justifiable grounds for objecting to the proposal on the basis that traffic movements associated with the new school would have an adverse impact on the character and appearance of Stoke Poges Village" and therefore traffic would not be a reason for refusal.

Furthermore, the planning department was criticised of doing a U-turn at the last minute for the previous school application which was probably a result of political pressure. Cllr Ralph Bagge is the Chair of the Planning Committee as well as Chair of Stoke Poges Parish Council and therefore the political boss of the planning department.

Cllr Bagge has acknowledged the potential perception that he will have a conflict of interest, as he is also a resident and chairman of Stoke Poges Parish Council.  It is bizarre, to say the least, that he has sought to resolve the risk of conflict by seeming to stand aside from discussions in the parish council (though he is still present at some of those discussions, according to minutes of the Parish Council’s meetings).  Clearly the risk of conflict arises in his role on the district council planning committee and this is the role he should step down from, when the committee considers KSA’s application for Pioneer House.

This recent decision represents the third U turn by the planning department of the District Council.  The first, which has not been mentioned to date, was that the Khalsa School previously sought guidance from a planning officer to establish the school on the grounds of Stoke House and were vehemently told that this was impossible as the land was in a conservation and green belt area. However earlier this year, the planning committee approved 24 new houses to be built on the same grounds and on the green belt.

This recent decision is irrational and seriously questions the credibility of the South Bucks Planning Department. If the planning committee members support the refusal of the Class K application then they risk the Council being exposed to a legal challenge and potential significant costs to the taxpayer.

We the parents and supporters ask that South Bucks District Council and members of the planning committee ensure that they take into careful consideration the far-reaching implications of having a member with a serious conflict of interest as part of the planning process.

We urge you to support the Class K application.

Why We Use Twitter

There has been speculation around the set up of our supporters’ account on Twitter, @FriendsofKSA, which we’d like to address with the facts.

Stoke Poges Parish Council continues to refuse to talk to the school, and so we realise we need to use a number of ways of communicating directly with villagers and families with school-age children.  We also need a means to counter misunderstandings about the school, which we can use to put out facts to clarify matters.

 

The @FriendsofKSA Twitter account was set up to communicate with people in the school area, who may be interested in what the school has to say.  Twitter is an ‘open’ social media platform, in that anyone can read what everyone else writes, and also see who follows whom, unless they elect to make their account ‘Private’.  For most Twitter users, only ‘Direct Messages’ between two participants are private.

In Twitter terms, someone who chooses to read your tweets is called a 'follower'. In practice, you would want the people you are interested in to ‘follow’ your Twitter account so they see what you post there on a regular basis.  It is normal to begin to build a community of 'followers' by searching for existing accounts with common interests, in the area you want to communicate with.  In our case those would naturally include residents of S.Bucks, including parents & children of Stoke Poges and other villages, plus community groups, businesses and others.  Having searched Twitter for accounts mentioning local place names, the FriendsofKSA account has 'followed' them and reviewed who, in turn, 'follows' those accounts.  

The accounts @StokePogesSch and @StokePoges_Yr6, for example, are likely to be followed by parents, teachers and pupils in that year at Stoke Poges Primary School.  This is the very group KSA wants to communicate with directly, to ensure we give them a clear idea of what the school can offer them.  If they choose to follow back and read our messages, they can decide if it might be suitable for their children’s entry to Yr 7 in September 2014, or a subsequent year.   

Users usually receive an email or text from Twitter when they have a new follower.  Lists of followers are openly available for account holders, parents, indeed for anyone to check.  As public information, it is like using electoral rolls to write to people living in a given area.  We wish to make clear that @FriendsofKSA has never initiated a conversation with a child on Twitter, and never would.

@FriendsofKSA was set up and operated by the school’s part time adviser, Tim Douglas.  Tim initially got involved when he saw tweets from both objectors and supporters of the school, clearly with very different views of whether the school should be located in Stoke Poges.  Over time Tim became convinced that the objectors had the wrong idea. He supported the school in a personal capacity for several weeks, before joining our communications team in early November.  Whilst operating @FriendofKSA for the school, Tim continues to operate a number of other Twitter accounts.  Tim is solely responsible for what he posts on his personal account, @TimDouglasHR, which are his personal views.

Will this be a School for local Children?

Firstly I would like to start with why I am happy to send my child to Khalsa Secondary Academy. Being a non-Sikh I know that school is open to all children irrespective of faith, race and creed.

Furthermore I am aware that 50% of the intake during coming years will be reserved for non-Sikhs (dependant on applications made for admission). Based on what I have seen and heard from the vision put forward by the Head Teacher who is also a non- Sikh, it is envisaged that this School will become one of the best non selective schools in South Bucks within five years of opening. Furthermore, I am confident that the school will build upon the ‘exceptional’ achievements of the Khalsa Primary School, which Ofsted recognised as an outstanding School.

For the purpose of this posting, I wanted to look further into the issue where it has been continuously stated that this school will not serve the local community and that many pupils will travel 12 to 14 miles and come from West London.

For the record, I have met with the School management team who helped me to personally analyse the Pupil data and I can conclude with the following facts and figures.

From auditable research it was established:

76% of the 2013 school enrollment will be commuting less than 5 miles to the Pioneer House site.

This can be contrasted with the School Children who reside within Stoke Poges and travel over 5 miles to attend Chalfont’s Community College and Beaconsfield High School. 

Furthermore, there is a total of 7 children out of 120 who will be traveling to the Pioneer site from West London.

Please take the points above into context, when reading posts, comments and articles which state otherwise.
 
I will leave it for you to decide if this is a school for local children. Based on the facts above I truly believe that it is.

Is there are a shortage of School places in South Bucks?

One of the issues mentioned regarding the placing of Khalsa Secondary Academy is that there is no demand for a new secondary school within the South Bucks area. One of the reasons quoted is that  school places within South Bucks area are under capacity. School places are only one of the considerations in determining whether new schools should be funded.

Parental choice is one of the primary tenets that successive Governments have supported and this is particularly true when one considers the availability of choice for minorities. In fact a letter from Sue Imbriano, the Director for Children and Families in Bucks County Council states that “they would support our proposal for a Sikh faith school in South Bucks on the basis of parental choice and diversity”.

Over 250 Sikh and non-Sikh families in South Bucks, have stated that they support the idea of Khalsa school being located in Stoke Poges and it is reasonable to conclude that they are likely to be sending their children or grandchildren to this school in the near future.

Turning to the issue of school places - the UK population has grown considerably in the last few years and this has caused a shortage of school places up and down the country. According to the BBC a quarter of a million school places are needed in England by autumn 2014. The reason for this demand is because the birth rate has grown more quickly than any time since the 1950s (the baby boomer years).

By 2014-15, the majority of the shortages of the places are indeed for Primary Schools and the remainder for secondary schools. However, the question is when the Primary School children grow up, are sufficient places available in the current Secondary Schools?

In 2012, the DFE estimated that by 2018-19 a further 400,000 places are required.

We are already seeing an impact within South Bucks. According to local press reports, St Mary’s & All Saints in Beaconsfield  are suffering from over capacity and are requesting to increase capacity to ease place shortages.  In 2010, at least 14 children from Beaconsfield were left without a place at any of three Beaconsfield schools and were offered places four and a half miles away.

It seems that the increase in Birth Rates have also impacted South Bucks with the increase in demand for Primary School places. According to South Bucks County Council website, over the next 25 years, it is expected that the 0-19 years segment of the population is expected to grow by over 20% compared to 10% in England.

The increase in the school age population and the shortage of Primary School places in South Bucks will eventually impact the secondary schools.  This will mean extra constraints in catchment areas.

Already we are seeing this problem manifest itself. I personally know of two sets of parents who are on the waiting list of Secondary Schools in Buckinghamshire. One is on the waiting list of Beaconsfield School and the other for Chalfont Community College. Both families live in South Bucks.

In fact, at the recent meeting between the Parish Council and Dominic Grieve, the minutes state that “Dominic pointed out that at some point South Bucks would need a new secondary school as the Chalfonts Community College was only 30 places away from saturation”. This statement along with the national trends and the migration of Sikhs from Slough to South Bucks, does seem to suggest that there will be a very near term requirement for additional school capacity.

The opening of Khalsa Secondary School in Stoke Poges which falls into South Bucks is a viable long term solution to a problem that is bound to come. So perhaps the challenge is whether the Khalsa School can meet the needs of local Christian and non-Christian parents, so that it can eventually become the local choice for parents. 

Many parents at the consultation open day welcomed the concept of the school and its ethos as well as the extra-curricular activities but were unsure about the Sikh faith label. Khalsa has stated that those parents that do not want to adopt the Sikh religious assembly can opt out and have their own assembly. Equally Sikh studies is not mandatory for non-Sikhs so in the end the Khalsa school is a school that delivers the national curriculum with a rich sports extra curriculum. Equally because of its ethos and approach, it will become a high performing local school for those non-Sikh pupils who do not make it to a Grammar school. 

We normally blame the government for thinking short term but it is fair to say that they can be commended for thinking long term in this case.

Lies, manipulation of the truth or a misunderstanding?

Having listened back to the BBC Three Counties interview with the Vice Chair of Stoke Poges Parish Council I was dismayed by the sheer lack of knowledge put forward. I am really hoping that this person was not trying to manipulate the truth and lie, I would prefer to put it down as a misconception or oversight but I will let you decide for yourself.

The show itself is available to be listened back to via this link until Monday 8 July, 2013.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p019y8t0


In the short interview, she mentioned that:

• All children from West London and Slough would get home/school transport fee's paid for them to attend Khalsa Secondary Academy.

• The school is full of just Sikh children.

• A thousand cars will drive into Stoke Poges to drop off pupils.

• There is no pavement on Hollybush Hill

There is absolutely no truth in any of the above and we do hope that this was not a deliberate attempt to again tarnish the project with hear-say and scaremongering. This has particularly caused furore as these un-truths were presented on a live BBC radio show which reaches thousand of listeners.

Just in case there is any doubt and to clear up any misunderstandings.


1) All Children from West London and Slough do not get home/school transport fee's paid. 
Only those children in Slough who live further than 3 miles from the school who are on low income and who chose a religious school, will be entitled to free transport. 
In other words they would have to satisfy the same criteria as those who get free meals (http://www.slough.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/free-school-meals.aspx).


2) I have been in touch with the school office and can honestly say that the school does NOT include just Sikh children, the first year seven intake includes children from a number of non-Sikh families and at least 10% of the first year intake is represented by non-Sikhs. Not only that a number of teachers, including the head-teacher, governors and trustee's of the school are non-Sikh.


3) A thousand cars will not drive into Stoke Poges as was stated in the interview. 
We as parents will pay for transport by using a coach pick up service which is being implemented to ensure that there is a minimal impact of traffic on the local village. We do not have to do this, however we are trying to be supportive of the villagers concerns.


4) As a member of the Parish Council, it is reasonable to assume they would at least have better knowledge of their own Parish. When leaving Pioneer House there is a pavement to the left going all the way into Stoke Poges village, much of this pavement is on both sides of the road.

We will be writing to the Parish council on the points above. 

We encourage you to listen back to the interview, make up your own mind about what was said and it's effect and contact BBC Three Counties radio so that they are aware of the series of incorrect statements which were made on the Iain Lee show on Monday 1 July by Saera Carter, Vice Chair of Stoke Poges Parish Council.

You may contact the Radio station via this email address: 3crListenerComments@bbc.co.uk 

Can a Village Support a Secondary School?

Over the past few months, many of you may have become aware of the proposed Khalsa Secondary Academy due to open in the village of Stoke Poges in September 2013.

Since it was announced that the new school will be located at Pioneer House there has been an element of opposition on the basis that the identity of the village will be ruined with the establishment of a school.

There have been a number of other reasons stated as to the objection to the school being based at Pioneer House ranging from:

•         School will create traffic and congestion
•         Religious schools create segregation
•         There is no demand for a secondary school in Stoke Poges
•         A village cannot support a secondary school of 850 pupils.

The point I would like to focus on is the last one.

Now comparing Slough to Stoke Poges would be like comparing apples to oranges as one is a town and the other a village. However, we can compare apples with apples. Stoke Poges which is part of Buckinghamshire which is made up of an array of very prosperous villages and small towns such as Gerrards Cross, Marlow ,Beaconsfield, Chalfont St Peter and Burnham.

The point I would like to make is an interesting one. Most of these “villages” have secondary schools in them, not just one but some of them have two. Another interesting fact is that some of these schools have over 1000 pupils.

Let’s take a look at some of the villages below:

Burnham

Population 11,442 with Two schools

Burnham Grammar (923)

Burnham Park Academy (740)

The proportion of school population to overall population is 14.5 %

Beaconsfield

Population 11,550 with Two schools

Beaconsfield High (1081)

Beaconsfield School (822)

The proportion of school population to overall population is 16.5%

Chalfont St Peter

Population 8,392

Chalfont Community College (1,780)

The proportion of school population to overall population is 21.2 %

Marlow

Population 14,000 with Two Schools

Great Marlow School (1,260)

Sir William Borlase Grammar (980)

The proportion of school population to overall population is 16%

Little Chalfont

Population  4,496

Dr Challoner’s High School (1044)

The proportion of school population to overall population is 23.2%

Amersham

Population 16,232

Dr Challoner’s Grammar School (1,286)

The proportion of school population to overall population is 7.9%

Amersham & Wycombe College (7000 – 2000 full time, 5000 part time) – the primary campus is the one in Amersham.

The Student to Overall population is a lot higher.

There are also other small towns and villages within Buckinghamshire that support secondary schools such as:

Princes Risborough

Population 7,978

Princes Risborough School (over 900 pupils)

Buckingham

Population 12,043 (Supports two private universities)

The University of Buckingham, Royal Latin School, The Buckingham School as well as independent schools outside it’s borders.

Wing  (near Aylesbury)

Population 2,745

Cottesloe School (over a thousand pupils)

This village is almost half the size of Stoke Poges.

Holmer Green

Population 4,077

Holmer Green Senior School (849 pupils) – another village smaller than Stoke Poges.

If Stoke Poges were to have a school of 845 in a  current population of 5044 (as of 2011 census) – it would be 16.7% - however in order for KSA to reach 845 pupils would take a period of at least five years.The growth projection of Stoke Poges at current growth rate would mean that the population would be approx 5649.

The proportion of the school population to the overall Stoke Poges  would be 15%.  (between 2005 and 2011 – there has been a 12% growth in population).

This is similar to Little Chalfont. The proportions are similar to Stoke Poges. It seem Little Chalfont  can really support a school the size of Dr Challoner’s High School.

How is it possible that Little Chalfont can support a school and Stoke Poges cannot?

How is that Holmer Green can support a secondary school and Stoke Poges cannot?

The fact of the matter is that both Little Chalfont and Holmer have remained  villages and still have the characters of a village (with greenbelt intact) even though both have large secondary schools. There are villages smaller than Stoke Poges such as Wing that can support a secondary.

The point to note these villages that have large secondary school are still vibrant villages.

I would like to conclude that Stoke Poges will still be a village with Khalsa Secondary School at Pioneer House.