Andrew Dismore

Andrew Dismore, Labour London Assembly member and parliamentary candidate for Hendon today revealed the news that the controversial free school plan for the Marco Polo Free School, to be built on Pavilion Way Fields has been quietly dropped by the Department for Education.

Mr Dismore said:

“I had a long overdue Freedom of Information request outstanding with the Education Funding Agency, the part of the Department for Education responsible for free schools, about the Marco Polo school. I have just received a phone call from the EFA, telling me the project was dropped several weeks ago, and asking whether I still wished my FoI request to be fulfilled. They were surprised that their decision had not been made public by the Council.

“Published only today, buried on the Council website, is the following:

“The Department for Education’s decision not to open the Marco Polo Primary free school has meant we are looking for more primary school places in the west of the borough than we had expected.  Moving forward, we will be working closely with the Department for Education to explore other options to create additional educational provision in this part of the borough.”

http://www.barnet.gov.uk/news/article/507/applications_for_primary_school_places_at_record_high

“This raises many questions the Council needs to answer:

1  Why was this flagship scheme surreptitiously dropped by the Council and      the EFA?

2  What is the impact on school places for this and next year in the west of the borough , as the school was due to take its first pupils this Autumn?

3  What will the Council now do to take forward the bi-lingual school project in a more suitable location, for example the proposed school on the Peel Centre site, where the developers are looking for a school promoter partner, as I originally proposed?

4   Will the Council now put on hold the sale of Pavilion Way Fields to property developers, as the purpose of the sale was to provide the funds to build the Marco Polo school which is no longer going to happen there?

5 Will the Council look again at the local campaigners’ plan to bring Pavilion Way Fields back into use as badly needed  decent  pitches?

6 Doesn’t this show the free school system yet again to be a fiasco?

7 And why did the Council try to hush this all up?

“The fact is, arrogant Conservative Barnet Council refused to listen to local people, put all their eggs in Michael Gove’s basket, and that basket has now been shown to be empty. The Conservatives have shown themselves to be as incompetent in education places as they have on everything else. it is time for them to go.”