Andrew Dismore

I promised to keep you up to date about developments concerning Avanti School’s plan to move to Broadfields and to the Fairway. This is not a campaign against Avanti itself: just that the location they have selected are not suitable either from the local residents’ viewpoint; or for that matter, for children attending the school  and their parents.

This may be the first update you have received from me. Click on the links below to see my previous updates.

Previous updates which have covered the watering down of the planning laws by the Government which makes objections very difficult; and my proposals to use redundant land on the Peel Centre site, the response of the Minister, and Boris Johnson’s attack on local people at Mayor’s Question Time. I am now numbering the updates, so I (and possibly you too) can keep track!

The survey I am conducting in the area has produced hundreds of responses: nearly all opposing Avanti. The surveys are still coming in thick and fast, so I will give you the analysed results in a further update in due course.

One of the most important issues is the recent grant of planning consent for the proposed woodland cemetery on the fields immediately to the north of the proposed Avanti site in Broadfields. Whilst I realise some residents may be not entirely happy with the cemetery proposal, this does block Avanti’s chance of securing playing field land that is contiguous to their proposed school building, so it has certainly helped the anti- Avanti campaign. Details of the planning permission can be found here.

Boris Johnson’s comments have received pretty universal condemnation. I am tabling further questions for the next mayor’s question time on 17^th July, demanding an apology for his defamatory remarks about local people.

I understand that at least 40 residents spontaneously tried to call in to his recent radio phone in on LBC’s “Ask Boris”, to put him right, but were not put through!

I have also secured a debate on free schools with particular reference to planning issues, (which will of course feature Avanti), at the assembly plenary meeting on 24^th July.

In the meantime, we have been raising freedom of information requests, to try to find out what has been going on.

Barnet Council Response:

            “I can confirm that the London Borough of Barnet holds the information you            requested. However, we are withholding some of that information since we consider that the following exemptions apply to it.

            Section 40 (2) FOIA sets out an exemption from the right to know if the information          requested is personal information protected by the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA).

            The DPA which governs the processing of personal data and defines personal data          “as any data which relate to a living individual who can be identified  from those data,    or  from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller.”

            Section 31 (1) (a) FOIA exempts disclosure of information if its disclosure under this       Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime.

            We consider that the absolute exemption set out in Section 40 (2) and Section 31 (1)        (a)  applies to the information requested. Therefore, we have decided to withhold this             Information.

            We will be sending you all correspondence between Barnet Council and the          Education Funding Agency from October 2012 to May 2013, regarding the proposed    move of Avanti House Free School to both their proposed permanent site adjacent to             Broadfields Primary School, Edgware and their proposed temporary site on land      adjacent to Fairway School, Mill Hill.”

I can’t’ quite see how these exemptions apply, especially the references to crime, but there we are! The documents they sent were in hard copy only, not electronic, and a lot of the names have been redacted, but this is a summary of what’s in them, which I think you will find as interesting as I did!

The documents confirm that the Department for Education (DfE) was in discussion with Barnet Council about a new site for Avanti (email 5/3/13), with an email of the same date to Avanti parents which appears (difficult to confirm absolutely due to redactions) to have been approved by the Council,  identifying both Broadfields and the Fairway as sites.

After this went out, a further email of 8/3/13 referred to the leaflet that was circulated on 7/3 by Broadfields Primary School, and the email suggested that the Council needed to give “further thought to communication and engagement”. In the end, this consisted of a decision by the Council to pass the buck and refer residents’ queries to Avanti Trust (14/3/13 email).

After the public meeting, the council officer referred to it being “a challenging one I’m sure” (22/3/13 email). The half-hearted suggestion of a building on North London Business Park came and went in just over a week.

17/5/13: an interesting email to the council officer dealing with the issue (sender redacted):

Dear..

“The Secretary of State has two powers over sites that have been maintained schools within the previous 8 years:

• to grant or not grant permission for the LA to dispose of the site.
• to make a scheme to transfer local authority land that has been used for a school within the previous 8 years (and is no longer so used) to an Academy Trust, without compensation- this power has existed for many years, but has never been used”

Unlike Broadfields, where DfE gave consent to Barnet to sell the site, the Northways site has been a school in the past 8 years and no permission has yet been given by the SoS for its disposal, it would therefore be very appropriate for scheming were that the only option……”

16/5/13: email from the Education Funding Agency (ie the DfE) to the Council:

“further to our meeting yesterday you asked me to  forward details of our proposals for the temporary school at Northway- see attached.

It would be really helpful if you could chase your colleagues to establish key property information about the site from when the site was demolished. We are particularly keen to establish locations for service connections and survey information including site contamination reports. The reason for this is under the CDM regulations there are obligations to establish key historic information about the site.

I also wanted to highlight the following site issues. These site issues will need to be addressed by the landlord prior to occupation of the site:”

The following 8 lines are then redacted, so we do not know what those issues are!

I am repeating the FoI request for any further documentation, but theses papers seem to suggest that my allegation that “something fishy is going on” is correct. The Council appears to have been colluding with the school from the start, and has been trying to manage the fallout, once local people found out what they were up to.

We also submitted a FoI request to the DfE, but they have refused to comply. We are rejigging our application in another attempt to find out what has been going on from their end.

Finally, I am still hassling the DfE civil servants dealing with Avanti for the meeting they promised, so I can try to get to the bottom of what has been going on, and press the case for other locations like the Peel Centre.

I will write again, when I have more to report.

Best wishes

Andrew Dismore AM

Labour London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden