Meeting documents

Appx 5

Statement by Richard Cross, Chair of Governors, St Martin's Garden Primary School, to Council Executive 06-Sep-06.

The Governing Body of St. Martin's Garden Primary School strongly object to the proposed recommendation R4.2 in the Inspector's Report on the BANES Local Plan.

The grounds for this objection are as follows:

1) The draft Inspector's Report was published in May 2006 after many years of public consultation. The proposed redevelopment of the St. Martin's Garden Primary School site was not placed into the public domain until July 21^st 2006. This has not allowed either the school or the local community any time to make appropriate representation. This has resulted in the complete lack of consultation with the local community.

2) The loss of the current site would be detrimental to the children in this community. The site is used for multi-curricular activities by this school and other schools and organisations throughout BANES. The full site is regularly used by Bath University, the MoD, the LEA and Bath Scouts. The space available on this site must be unique amongst primary schools in BANES.

3) The size of the current site enables us to offer our children an unparalleled range of sporting opportunities, which would be impossible on a smaller site. This is particularly significant in the light of recent concerns about childhood obesity.

4) Nearly two million pounds of local and national taxpayers' money has been spent over the last few years in upgrading the school. This includes large sums spent on the Margaret Coates Centre for Autistic Children and the brand new Children's Centre to serve east Bath. These are leading facilities in their fields within the authority and the region.

5) No information is available on any impact this development may have on the school and community through the increase in traffic and any future population change.

6) The current school merited a mention by Pevesner in his survey of British buildings, and the school in its current setting is a visually important open space in the densely populated Odd Down area.

We would ask the Executive Committee to take into consideration the above points and reject the Inspector's recommendation R4.2.