St Peter’s school have put an application forward to build a road to allow the parents of their pupils to be dropped off at the door of their newly bought school - formally Queen Anne’s.
I have to admit that this proposed road will be placed at the bottom of the street that I live on and I have to admit that the situation at the moment is poor.
At the same time they are wanting to build two astro-turf pitches with floodlights. The sceptics among us would beleive that this is the main reason why they want the access road building as this would be a revenue earner for them.
So if we take the first point - pupils being deleivered to school. The problems with this are:
- Kids are getting fatter because they have no exercise - encouraging them not to walk is detrimental to their health
- Most of the kids seem to get delivered in 4x4’s - one of the worst cars for safety to pedestrians - so while little Jonny is safe - they don’t give a hoot for others.
- It is obvious by this application that the premises that they bought were unsuitable for their needs - so wouldn’t the solution be to move the school into purpose built builds at a place where access is better - i.e. not in a residential area. Most of the children that attend this school are not local.
Also the school already has a planning application out for the removal of a public right of way. The proposed development will effect another public right of way. Also the application for the removal was done on the basis that non-school related people were on the premises. By opening out the school premises to the public - use of the astro-turf - this would increase the number of people on the property.
Basically the reasons that they put forward for changing the access to the school do not make sense if you take into consideration the pupils alone - but when you add in the fact that they want to open up access to the public so that they can use the astro-turf facilities then you realise that this is a commercial venture.
