Chris Black writes:
It was a night of torrential rain in Rayleigh – but still more than 100 people turned up this evening for a public meeting to discuss the proposed SureStart centre there. In fact some people had to stand.
Here are the key points:
The meeting was capably chaired by Stephen Castle, who is not only the Conservative County Councillor for Rayleigh North but also the top councillor for education.
The County Council have planned about 80 centres altogether, some at schools, some elsewhere. Downhall seems to be causing them more trouble than any of the others, because of strong local objections.
The political situation is effectively that it’s Cllr Castle himself who will make the decision whether to go ahead with it at Downhall School. He indicated that it wasn’t his first choice of location, but that time was running out to use the money available.
Having a Surestart centre by the Grange Community Centre was another option.
Head Teacher Mrs Reck said that if the centre wasn’t built, the school would be ?100,000 short of funding for the new classrooms they wanted.
The revised scheme has a slightly smaller building. Access would still be from Torquay Close, but there would be 4 parking spaces by Downhall Park Way – 2 for staff, 1 for official visitors and 1 disabled.
The centre would cater for up to about 12 parents and children at a time, with possible hours from 8 am – 6 pm , including weekends.
The overwhelming view of the public was that SureStart centres are a good idea and can bring benefits – but Downhall isn’t the right location. It would have an impact on the school atmosphere and day-to-day running, there were concerns about security, and parking was a big problem. Grange would be a better location – more space, and better parking.
One very good speaker said that a lot of the services the proposed centre would offer were already available- there were already a multiplicity of parent and child groups in Rayleigh, these facilities should be in the town centre.
Cllr Castle gave me the opportunity to speak a couple of times. I was critical of the parking situation. I also disagreed with the comment of one of the council officers that people would be within ‘prampushing distance’ , saying that visitors would be using their cars.
So Stephen Castle has to go away and make his decision. I share the views of 98% of the public there that the centre shouldn’t be built at Downhall – it’s just too cramped a location. Hopefully he will come to the same view.
Please – no personal attacks in the comments please!
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Too many points for me to know where to start with this one, and I know a lot of my views have already been mentioned by others.
As a start though, I would like to point out that I find it unacceptable that this is being rushed through because of time restrictions on budget. I know this seems to be the way public spending budgets operate, but it is wrong, and worse so if they are proposing a second choice option because of it. This is such a wasteful and inefficient way to use public money. If the money is available now, it should be kept available until a proper solution is found. Or are we worried that the council will stick it in an Icelandic saving account for a few months if it isn’t spent straight away?
Secondly, If the school needs two new classrooms to properly cater for the number of pupils in attendance, they should be funded as part of the education budget, and not be linked to a project such as sure start as some kind of token bribe. This is the same as only getting infrastructure improvements if we give planning permission to developers to build never ending numbers of houses. We pay enough in taxes to expect basic infrastructure such as classrooms and road crossings to be directly public funded, without having to resort to this distasteful horse trading.
Here’s an idea, why not use the sure start budget to pay for the new classrooms, and the potential sure start users can use the facilities that already exist in the town anyway.
By the way, can someone tell me what an “Official Visitor” is, and why they qualify for a dedicated parking space?
By the way, what was the councillor’s first choice location?
Was it by any chance the promised community facility next to Asda that was promised as part of the development, the one that seems to have been forgotten about (like the money for the road crossing at Downhall Park Way)?
The County Council are just using the word ‘visitor’, Chris put the word ‘official’ in front to make it clear that we are not talking about ordinary users of the proposed centre.
ST1, if you were applying for planning permission for an office, you would need to provide parking for staff, plus parking for visitors (e.g. customers, business contacts etc)….
The next question is why the proposal doesn’t have parking for ordinary users. I suppose the answer is that someone in the County thinks they can get away without it.
Admin, I had visions of a black Jaguar parked there with an official gold chain left in the windscreen where the parking permit should be.
I suspect that this visitor parking space is just a 3rd employee space, but designating it as visitor allows them to tick a box. So they only expect 2 people to work there?
Clearly the new parking provision is still inadequate, and opens up new questions about access to the site, now that the parking is remotely situated from the main entrance. Where can we get pictures of the plans, unfortunately I was not able to attend last night? I did look on the council website, but could find no plans there.
As for the view that all users will walk because it will be in “pram-pushing” distance, these council officials need to get out a bit more.
Having been to both consultation meetings, I was amazed that Sure Start still did not have all the facts and figures available to answer the questions put to them. At the last meeting there was a Project Manager available to answer the technical questions which I feel in my opinion was needed last evening. I feel that the only difference was the fact that four parking spaces were to be made available(not for use by the people attending the centre) but for staff etc. This does not address the main concerns of parking in the surrounding area. I feel that the issue of security has still not been addressed, and is one of the biggest concerns to parent of children who attend Downhall School. Also the presentation was very poor the overhead projection was almost, unreadable depending were people were sat. The proposed plans were very hard to see and read. The lady talking about the plans appeared to be having difficulty explaining how the site would run. Overall I would say that no one was convinced that this would be an appropriate site for this centre and nothing that had been said last evening had changed anyones opinions since July.
I attended last night’s meeting and quite frankly it was the type of consultation that we should have had back in July. As a parent of a child attending Downhall my main concern is how putting a Children’s centre in the school affects the security and day to day operations of the school both at drop-off and pick up times and during the daily running. These concerns were expressed at the initial consultation in July and the modifications have done nothing to alleviate these concerns. In reality all the adjustments have achieved is a reduced capacity building which reduces the service the children’s centre can provide and therefore reduces the utility and justification of such a building given the inconvenience of having it in the first place.
Locating the building where they are proposing to splits the school in half and will make it a logistical nightmare at pick-up and drop-off time. Anyone thinking that creating a gated pass through of the path between the two playgrounds is sufficient needs to see how the current ‘open’ path works today. Parents will congregate around these gates and cause bottle necks – at least at the moment people can spill over to the grass to get around these groups of parents / children – under the current plan this will become a significant bottle neck. Not to mention we now have to be out by 9:00 or face being locked in….
Day to day movements around the school will also be affected – in my opinion to the detriment of the children and staff having to navigate around the internal building to simply get from one playground to another.
In addition to the logistics I still have concerns around the security of these gates and paths which could prove to become a weakness – coupled with the broad ranging services that could be provided at the centre this would enable strangers to appear as legitimate visitors of the centre whilst having ulterior and less desirable motives – it wouldn’t take much imagination for these undesirable members of society to breach these gates and get access to school grounds.
I personally did get the feeling that this was not necessarily a done deal and I plan to send Cllr Castle an email to reiterate my views on this proposal taking into consideration last nights meeting. If you share any of the concerns above I encourage you to do the same his email address can be found on the essexcc.gov.uk website.
I think maybe we should start trying to tell sure start what we will accept as parents and what they need to do if this center is to go ahead. Remember we need the extra money for the new classrooms, this is the first time we have been told this !!! If it was feasible what about Brooklyn Drive as the entrance, the childrens center could be the opposite side of the new classrooms, the path and parking could run along side the swimming pool (all with 6ft high fences around). Security issues would be addressed, parking would be addressed, the playgrounds would not be split and it would have its own separate entrance to which office staff would be able to see people coming and going. What do people think ??? Do you have any other ideas ???
Security, Site, Parking…What a shame these issues have not been resolved to the satisfaction of parents/residents. I felt the answers given by the panel often conflicted with each other.
Please can someone clarify a point for me….Am I right in thinking the fire exits to the Sure Start building lead directly into the School grounds? I was unable to this see clearly from the plans. If so, what is to stop an undesirable in the SS building setting off the alarm and therefore gaining access to the pupils in the school? Maybe I have an overative imagination, but im sure im not the only one.
Interesting meeting last night. Though I do not totally agree that Down Hall School is the correct location for a Sure Start centre I did feel that some of the input from the parents was conflicting. Security was a big issue for most of the parents and rightly so but the school is a open site before 9.00 am and now the gates are going to be locked sharply at 9.00 to make it more secure – makes sense to me but not everyone seemed happy about that. Most people would agree that the two new classes would be welcome but they are not happy about contractors being on site – well how else are they going to be built! Lots of the parents were unhappy about the extra traffic that would occurred but they themselves are still happy to drive their children to school! I felt alot of people were at the meeting for the wrong reasons.
Personally I think the Grange would be a better location for the Sure Start centre as there is more room for parking and space to extend the building if necessary. I feel these centres are a good idea but in the right place.
Following on from JamieT – Stephen Castle’s email address is
Cllr.Stephen.Castle@essex.gov.uk
Unfortunately due to work commitments I was unable to attend the meeting last night, (shame two dates were not offered!!!!) Can someone please explain why if the Surestart Centre doesn’t go ahead will the school be £100,000 short for the much needed classrooms? Back in 2008 the then head Mr Barton told parents that the schools application to County for funding of the new classrooms had been approved, and that the grant had been awarded, with I think, some match funding from the school, at that time there was even talk of the building work starting in the summer months of 2008 ready for a wrap around care provision being opened in October 2008, have I missed something, why can’t the school revert to the plans that were approved by county for funding, and build what they had originally planned for, with the grant that had been allocated.
Regarding open site comments, yes, the school is an open site until 9am and from 3pm, but parents are there to keep an eye on their kids. Parents concerns (i believe anyway) are for the security of their children whilst the Sure Start building is in use. From speaking to parents, I do not feel their minds were put at rest as a result of the consultation. The panel should have been tripping over themselves to alay these fears. What a wasted opportunity. If The Grange site is not suitable (I fail to see why it wouldnt be), maybe ideas raised by “parent” could be explored?
Thanks admin for putting the email address for Cllr Castle up I wasn’t sure on policy for putting those details on here.
To answer the query relating to the fire exits – when we reviewed the plans in July I specifically asked about fire exits and if they would lead into the school grounds and was told categorically no. The centre will have an outside play area which will be secured and separated from school playgrounds etc (no mention of height or type of fence was made just that it would be secure!!). In the event of an evacuation all people in the centre would be evacuated and contained to this outside play area. When I pointed out that these people would then be trapped in the outside area until the emergency was resolved I was advised that this was acceptable. I did not get a detailed enough view of the plans at the meeting on Tuesday to see if this has changed but I am guessing this setup would be the same. I personally have my doubts as to how secure this outside play area is (are they really going to put a 6ft anti climb fence around it?? – allbeit if evacuated to it it would be fairly obvious if they tried to escape!!) and whether planning are going to be happy with the idea of an evacuation path from the centre that traps the people in the play area just next to the centre?
With regards to the “local resident – ex parent” I do not understand why you would be surprised there was conflicting opinions amongst the parents we are all individuals regardless of your attempt to tar us all with the same brush. Contrary to some of the comments in the meeting not ALL parents drive their children to school or park irresponsibly (in the same vein not all parents would let their child wee on the pavement – a totally irrelevant point which was raised at the meeting). I live about 5-10 mins walk from the school and 99% of the time we walk out children to school (as do a lot of the parents I saw at the meeting). On the odd occasion that I have driven it is usually because I am on my way out to work (dropping off) or coming straight from work (picking up) and contrary to comments in the meeting whenever I do drive I park considerately and do not block drive ways or other cars. It is unfortunate that the few parents (I would like to think they are the minority of parents) that park or drive irresponsibly give the rest of us parents a bad name.
As another parent mentioned the school is an open site at drop off and pick up but we generally have sight of our children and that alleviates the open site issues at that time. My concern with the 9:00 rule (especially if the site is split by the centre) is more around the risk of being trapped one side of the school and having to leave by the main entrance as I would then have to face a substantially longer walk home (or to my car if I chose to drive and park – responsibly!!). Most parents at the meeting were not for the centre therefore their concerns around disruption were adding weight to the argument of not having the centre at the school. My understanding around the two classrooms was that the original plans were to do the majority of disruptive building work during the 6 weeks holiday which alleviates a lot of the concerns around noise and heavy machinery near children – with the children centre similar assurances have not been forthcoming.
I agree with what “Local resident ex.parent” says some people there had there own agendas and probably don’t have children between the ages of 0-5 years. I also agree that it would be better located at The grange but if this does go ahead at Downhall Primary school, The school, Sure Start and Parents need to be working together but everyone at the moment seems to be working against each other. Will the School Hall be used if the building doesn’t go ahead? The school said yes, Sure Start said No ? Are the fences 6ft High? no one knew the answer? These were just some questions asked before at the last consultation and 5 months on and we still don’t know the answers. We all want whats best for the school and whats best for our children so please all work together to help resolve these issues.
Jamie T. – I did not tar all Down Hall parents with the same brush – not once did I say all parents (words used were ‘not everybody’ and ‘some’). Fortunately lots of the parents/children do walk or drive and park responsibly. Unfortunately, the residents probably only see the bad and I do sympathize with them and I can understand why they do not want any further disruption with regards parking. I fully understand the concern that everybody has about security and don’t think the answers given were very clear. ‘Still a concerned parent’ – not all the children come to school with their parents to keep an eye on them, quite a few arrive on their own. Unfortunately at the meeting I was sitting amongst the ‘moaners and the groaners’ who were making comments to each other but were not brave enough to speak out loud. They definitely had their own agenda! Well done to Stephen Castle who I think conducted the meeting well, kept it in check and stopped it from getting personal – even if he didn’t give us all the answers we wanted.
I agree with ‘Parent’ the Grange seems a better location but if this does go ahead everybody needs to work together.
You are correct, not ALL the children come to school with their parents to keep an eye on them. With the expection of Years 5 and 6, it is probably only around 95%. My daughter is a Year 4 pupil and I am unaware of any other pupils in her year thats not to say there arnt any) that do not have parents/carers to keep an eye on them.
Lots of rumours swirling around today…
Admin,
Yes, lots of rumours. Very wrong that it has been leaked like this, there is an order in which people should be told and this is very unprofessional and I feel sorry the school. Good news though if it’s true !!!
It’s appropriate for the school to make an announcement before we say anything here….
Its in the echo, Come on school !!!