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Concern Over Park Lane School Plans
19 March 2008
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Tilehurst Lib Dems used last Monday’s (17 March) Council Cabinet meeting to raise concerns over the £14.5m scheme to rebuild Park Lane School and provide a new nursery (to replace the current Blagrave nursery buildings), Health Centre and Public Library. Cllr Ricky Duveen told the Cabinet when it discussed a report on progress with the project that he and the other Tilehurst councillors were worried that the latest plans no longer included a synthetic turf pitch, one of the key ingredients in previous plans for the site as it uses less space than providing separate hard and grass play areas. The fear now is that without the synthetic pitch it will be difficult to fit all the facilities into the new site and the current plans show that the hard play area for the expected 420 children has shrunk to the size of two netball pitches. Cllr Pete Beard noted that synthetic pitch would also have been available as a community facility for games outside school hours.
Cllr Ricky Duveen welcomed the commitment to replacing the existing play area known as the ‘big swings’ with a new play area that he assumed would provide similar play facilities.
However, Cllr Duveen attacked the Labour Administration for hiding away the fact that the plans for redeveloping the current Junior School site and Downing Road playing field assumed that only 10% of the new houses would be ‘affordable homes’ in complete contrast with the Administration’s stated aim of seeking 50% affordable homes for new developments, agreed only in January this year !’
Cllr Duveen said that ‘we were wasting a golden opportunity to provide new homes for tens of families who cannot under current conditions, buy their own house outright and need help to get their foot on the property ladder. Where else could local young families find decent homes with wonderful facilities right on their doorstep in the middle of Tilehurst. The Labour Council was not prepared to put its money where its mouth was and was shamefully backtracking on commitments to affordable housing made only in January.’
Editor's Notes:
The Local Development Framework available on the council’s website agreed by the council in January 2008 contains policy CS16 which states:
All developments of 15 dwellings and above... will provide 50% of the total number of dwellings in the form of affordable housing.
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