{"id":3177,"date":"2009-12-02T23:41:20","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T23:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onlinefocus.org\/?p=3177"},"modified":"2009-12-02T23:52:22","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T23:52:22","slug":"downhall-school-is-packed-for-meeting-about-surestart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onlinefocus.org\/downhall-school-is-packed-for-meeting-about-surestart\/","title":{"rendered":"Downhall School Is Packed For Meeting About Surestart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Black writes:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Here are the key points:<\/p>\n

  • \nThe 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. <\/li>\n
  • \nThe 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. <\/li>\n
  • 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.<\/li>\n
  • \nHaving a Surestart centre by the Grange Community Centre was another option.<\/li>\n
  • \nHead 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.<\/li>\n
  • \nThe 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.<\/li>\n
  • \nThe centre would cater for up to about 12 parents and children at a time, with possible hours from 8 am – 6 pm , including weekends.<\/li>\n
  • 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.<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n
  • 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.<\/li>\n
  • 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.<\/li>\n

    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. <\/strong>
    \n<\/em><\/p>\n

    Please – no personal attacks in the comments please!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[32,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nDownhall School Is Packed For Meeting About Surestart - onlineFOCUS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onlinefocus.org\/downhall-school-is-packed-for-meeting-about-surestart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Downhall School Is Packed For Meeting About Surestart - onlineFOCUS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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. 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