Response and Recovery Committee 26 November 2020 Allocation Of
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Response and Recovery Committee 26 November 2020 Allocation of sites for school developments Report by: Director of Children’s Services and Executive Director of Place Relevant Portfolio Holder: Councillor Diane White, Portfolio Holder for Children's Services including Education, and Councillor Caroline Kerr, Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Assets and Investments Purpose This report seeks approval for further work to be undertaken, and revenue funding to be provided, to further the aim of formally allocating land at Kingsmeadow in Norbiton and Moor Lane in Chessington for the development of a new voluntary-aided secondary school and a new special free school in the borough respectively, and seeks approval for additional funding for the new build required to implement the expansion of Burlington Junior School from four to five forms of entry. To RESOLVE that: 1. further due diligence is undertaken, and revenue funding provided for that purpose, towards a formal allocation of land at Kingsmeadow as the site for a new voluntary-aided 900-place (180 per year) 11-16 Church of England secondary school to be provided by the Diocese of Southwark. 2. further due diligence is undertaken, and revenue funding provided for that purpose, towards a formal allocation of land at the Moor Lane Centre site for a new 4-19 90-place special free school to be provided by Ambitious About Autism. 3. funding is allocated for the new build required to implement the expansion of Burlington Junior School from four to five forms of entry and to maintain the school’s existing ‘CLASP’ building until the new accommodation can, subject to planning permission, be built. Benefits to the community: The proposals will provide a new secondary school and special school for children from the local area and thereby provide additional school places to meet forecast demand. The new schools and the expansion of Burlington Junior School will avoid the need for local children to be accommodated at schools outside their local area, potentially being a considerable distance away at other schools across the borough. The expansion of Burlington Junior will also provide a much improved, 21st Century learning environment to replace the school’s ‘CLASP’ building which is beyond its original ‘shelf life’. Key Points A. The Council has a legal duty, under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996, to provide a sufficiency and diversity of state-funded school places for those of its residents who need them, in accordance with forecast demand. The School Place Planning Strategy, adopted by the Council’s then Growth Committee in June 2017, identified a likely need for additional mainstream secondary school places beyond 2020. B. Since then, demand for Year 7 places in the Borough has grown considerably: In September 2018, there was a 5% vacancy rate in Year 7 places across the borough, 96 places in three schools: Chessington, Coombe Boys’ and Tolworth Girls’; in September 2019, there was a 2.3% vacancy rate – 47 spare places, all of which were at Chessington School; and in September 2020, there was a 1% vacancy rate - just 22 places, all at Chessington School. The need for additional places in the Kingston and Norbiton areas of the borough in particular has grown. Demand is set to increase further over the next six years and beyond. A revised School Place Planning Strategy, setting out that demand, was considered and approved at the Council’s Children’s and Adults’ Care and Education Committee (CACE) on 10 November. C. The Diocese of Southwark, which maintains nine primary schools in the Borough, has had a longstanding wish to open a voluntary-aided co-educational Church of England secondary school within the borough, to provide a natural Year 7 destination for some of the children attending those primary schools. D. In December 2018, the Department for Education (DfE) announced an application round in which it would provide 90% of the capital costs of new voluntary-aided schools in areas where a need for new secondary places had been identified. As the Council would not, as set out below, be able to ensure the opening of an additional secondary school by other means or be able to expand existing secondary schools to provide the requisite number of additional places, it therefore supported the Diocese’s application. E. That support involved meeting two conditions of the DfE’s application success criteria: that a Council-owned site would be provided on a 125-year peppercorn-rent basis (in the same way as for a new free school); and that it would provide the remaining 10% of capital funding needed for the school, estimated at £2.5m. The Diocese’s application for a six-form entry 11-16 school to the DfE identified a site within the Kingston/Norbiton area, and the Council subsequently agreed, subject to formal committee approval, that the Kingsmeadow site in Norbiton should be long-leased for the school. F. In order to establish the school, the Diocese must undertake a formal consultation on a statutory proposal setting out the details of the school. It is envisaged that the Diocese will undertake a six-week consultation with all relevant stakeholders during January and February 2021. That proposal must set out the details of the proposal, including: age-range; the proposed admissions oversubscription policy; and the intended opening date, which is envisaged to be September 2024. G. The Council’s Children’s and Adults’ Care and Education Committee (CACE), acting as local decision-maker, will then, within three months of the end of the Diocese’s consultation period, be required to consider the proposal and the responses to it and to make a formal determination either to approve or refuse the proposal. Approval of a statutory proposal can be contingent upon conditions being met; in this instance, the Council’s Response and Recovery Committee subsequently considering and deciding to dispose of the Kingsmeadow site, and its Development Control Committee considering and deciding to approve the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s planning application for the school’s build and landscaping works. H. The School Place Planning Strategy of 2017 also set out a need for additional special school and specialist resource provision places in the Borough, to provide education for children and young people with special educational needs. In 2018, the DfE announced a second wave of its special free school competition programme, i.e. to invite local authorities to make applications for the right to hold a competition to secure an education provider who would run a special school within its area. The DfE would pay all the capital costs associated with the provision of the school. Achieving for Children (AfC), on behalf of the Council, submitted an application for a 90-place special school to serve children and young people aged four to 19 whose primary special educational need is autism. I. Although there are several specialist resource provisions in mainstream primary and secondary schools in the Borough which educate children and young people with autism, there is no special school which has a dedicated designation of autism. The application was therefore made, in October 2018, on the basis that it would meet a clear gap in local provision. The DfE’s application success criteria included a requirement that a Council-owned site would be provided for the school on a 125-year peppercorn-rent basis. J. In the application, part of the Moor Lane Centre site in Chessington was identified as the potential site. In March 2019, the DfE approved the application. In May 2020, AfC issued a specification inviting education providers to apply to run the proposed school. Following the application and interview process, the DfE appointed Ambitious About Autism as the provider. Work, led by the Department’s funding arm, the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), is ongoing regarding initial feasibility and design work for the school. K. A report, or reports, will subsequently be brought to the Council’s Response and Recovery Committee in spring 2021, requesting formal allocation of the two sites on a 125-year peppercorn-rent basis and of the 10% contribution towards the costs of the Church of England school. In order to make progress towards that point, this report requests that revenue funding be provided to support the further due diligence, including legal work, which is required. L. In November 2019, a statutory proposal to expand Burlington Junior from four to five forms of entry was approved, in order to provide additional places when they are forecast to be needed.The Council therefore has a statutory duty to implement that proposal. Although an indicative figure of £6m was stated as the forecast project cost when the proposal was approved, detailed cost analysis has subsequently shown that the likely cost will be substantially more than that. This report therefore requests funding from within the Council’s capital programme to cover the estimated cost of £13.1m (£10m for construction and £3.1m for fees, inflation and contingency). As the Juniors’ main ‘CLASP’ block is aging and past its ‘shelf life’, it will need further remedial work to ensure that it is both safe and suitable as a learning environment until the new accommodation can be built. An amount of £50,000 is therefore requested to fund the feasibility and initial remedial work required to make this building safe to occupy until the next section is completed. Should the works exceed £50,000, those costs would have to be found within the existing overall budget of £13.1m or a further report brought to Committee. SECONDARY SCHOOL PROVISION The forecast need for additional secondary school places 1.