Effingham Parish Council was invited to a meeting with Berkeley Homes and the Howard Partnership Trust to provide information on a planning application to be submitted soon for a smaller school with 1,600 students. The meeting was held at the end of January and was also attended by a representative of EFFRA.
The Parish Council and EFFRA have similar concerns about the proposals which the Parish Council shared in its Spring Newsletter on page 2 which you can read here. These are:
- Berkeley Homes will be making more profit from the smaller school but do not intend to share that with the community or provide a Financial Viability Statement as justification.
- Although we were assured that the smaller school would not affect the chances of Effingham and local children being admitted to the school we still have concerns that it may.
- A new parking layout was shown with the drop-off and pick-up area for children accessed directly from Lower Road instead of from the new access road as in the agreed application. We have serious concerns about the safety of this for children and the effect on congestion in Lower Road. We believe that as cars will travel from both directions and will turn across oncoming traffic on entry and exit this will lead to queuing and as a result children are likely to be tempted to get out of the cars and try to cross the road.
EFFRA has now written to the Howard Partnership Trust asking it to reconsider the parking proposals and produce a proposal that is optimal for safety and minimising congestion that uses the access road as previously agreed. You can read EFFRA’s letter here. EFFRA is awaiting a response from the Howard Partnership Trust.
I find it unbelievable that SCC would accept a school the same size as existing when there are proposals to build 400 extra homes in Effingham and a further 200 on Preston Farm, Lt. Bookham adjacent the Effingham border. I simply do not believe that the birth rate has dropped so significantly.
Also, as EPC have sensibly pointed out, the parking proposals are downright bloody stupid.
The Planning Dept. needs to get a firm grip on this project!
What a disgrace. Children in and around this school in Effingham and Bookham will be short changed for places. With the new housing development adjacent the need is for more not less. The lower road is already congested at times and the new road proposal will become extremely dangerous for children. These “all for profit” changes need to be rejected otherwise we are going to end up with worse state than is currently the situation.
Completely agree. Well done and thank you for your efforts