A London primary school is doing battle with an education charity that funds fee-paying schools over a strip of grassy playground on which the charity wants to build almshouses for the elderly.
The country’s first bilingual state school, the Judith Kerr free school, opened in 2013 in an area where state school places were at a premium and private schools flourished. Now the primary in Herne Hill, south London, has become a symbol of the competing interests of Britain’s sandwich generation – under pressure to look after the youngest and the oldest.
The school already has just half the statutory recommended outside space for its 195 pupils – a roll that will increase to 350 over four years – and faces losing more after the landlord offered the land to an associated charity to build houses for the elderly. The proposed site would reduce the playground to 19% of the size recommended by the Department for Education.
Both sides in the dispute are now competing for support among local people ahead of a formal planning application but the case is aggravated by the fact that most of the profits from the landowner, Dulwich Estate, which has charitable status, go to three prestigious fee-paying schools in the area: Dulwich College, Alleyn’s and James Allen’s Girls’.
The dwindling size and number of school playing fields in England and Wales has been a subject of renewed controversy since the then education secretary Michael Gove relaxed regulations, allowing 118 schools to sell off their open spaces between 2010 and the end of 2015.
Under the terms of its lease, Judith Kerr primary school cannot oppose the application itself, leaving it as a matter for the community with Southwark council the adjudicator, says Councillor Mark Williams, cabinet member for planning. He says the council wants the land designated as protected open space – which would halt any building – but that could not come into force until 2018.
“The Dulwich Estate will need to canvass local residents. This has to be determined by what support they have in the local community.”
Far from being a parochial row, the local MP, Labour’s Helen Hayes, believes the stand-off is representative of problems thrown up by the government’s rush to implement the free schools programme. She said: “Free schools were being implemented in a terrible hurry, which led to Judith Kerr signing a lease like this, which effectively left their playground open to development. This is only one example of the chaos that stemmed from the pace of change in the school system, something I’m hearing about in my constituency time and time again.” She said there was a “disconnect between the demand and finding sites that function properly”.
Parents, meanwhile, are left with the possibility of their children facing a school day spent entirely indoors. “We’ve no idea what weight the council might give to parents,” said one parent, Emma Huntly. “It’s really worrying. The broader issue is how free schools are set up. The lease doesn’t say they have the right to build; it suggests they have the right to submit a planning application. This is already an oversubscribed school, showing what the need is in the area.
“Nobody is saying there isn’t a huge need for sheltered accommodation for older people. But taking away the land of a state school, not one of [Dulwich Estate’s] fee-paying schools, is elitism. It’s the old versus the young, and that puts us in a really difficult place. It’s dividing the community.
“Green space is so precious and we find it hard to believe given the phenomenal wealth and huge portfolio within south London of the Dulwich Estate that it cannot find another site for development.”
The Dulwich Estate owns some 1,500 acres of Dulwich and the surrounding area, including freeholds on hundreds of flats, maisonettes, shops and pubs. It came under fire last year for raising shop rents by 70%, pushing a much-loved local toyshop out of business, and has been embroiled in another community row over the fate of a pub.
Catrin Waugh, chair of trustees of the Dulwich Almshouse Charity, funded by the Dulwich Estate, said the charity’s current grade II-listed building in Dulwich Village was no longer appropriate. “There are three steep steps up to the front doors of the four blocks, which preclude anyone who uses a wheelchair or has very impaired mobility from living there.
“The rooms are small and it is hard to accommodate mobility aids and other equipment that may become necessary as residents’ health begins to fail. There is also no lift access to the first floor.
“Our objective is to provide homes that are fit for purpose in the 21st century and to make them as future-proof as is possible. In addition to providing a purpose-built communal facility for the residents of the almshouse, we also intend that the facility could be shared with other community groups who share our aim of providing support to the elderly in our society.
“The Dulwich Almshouse Charity is committed to consultation and keen to understand the views and ideas of the wider community. We believe this is the proper approach prior to an application.”
