PROTECT TUNSTALL COMMUNITY

Below is part of an email I received from Roger Gough, Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform KCC which was originally part of an email to Lee Burgess, KCC Councillor for Swale Central and Chair of Tunstall Parish Council sent on 11th February 2014.
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Starting with the issue as to whether or not the school is at risk of closure, my view (and I think I have stated it publicly) matches what I recall being said by Patrick and Marisa at Education Cabinet Committee. That is that, if the school were to revert to being half FE (of which more in a moment), then it does not follow that it would close. However, the school would certainly be more vulnerable because it would be less financially resilient and less able to deliver the breadth of curriculum choice.

In terms of Plan B, of course there is always a need to have such plans because, quite properly,
we cannot prejudge the outcome of any of these processes, in particular planning. However, there are a number of difficulties with the option of 1FE on the current site:
- Any replacement of the mobile classrooms would require planning permission, and when this was most recently sought for the current mobiles the Planning Committee made it clear that they expected a longer term solution for Tunstall School to be put in place. This raises the question of having to go back to half FE
- As you will know far better than I, the issues around parking and traffic have proven intractable. They were brought to my attention by one of your predecessors long before I took on the Education portfolio, and despite many discussions on this subject there appears to be no long term solution. If anything, the introduction of yellow lines has exacerbated the situation
- There is no obvious source of funding for new buildings. We have money from national government earmarked for Tunstall as part of Targeted Basic Need, but that is predicated on expansion. The modernisation budget is zero; government expects us to put all except a small maintenance pot towards basic need, and indeed to top that up with funds of our own
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In a subsequent email to me that I received on 15th February 2014, which Lee was copied on, Roger stated the following ...
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If there is one point that, looking back on my note, is perhaps not as clear as it might be (and Lee, my apologies if this was a bit obscure), it is that I am not stating anywhere that there is any explicit ‘Plan B’. The point I was trying to make was that, if the current proposal were to fall on planning grounds, we would of course have to find other ways to provide the school places required. What form that would take is very hard to say, but I have indicated below (SH: above in this post) some of the difficulties with the idea of having a 1FE school on the current site. Since the current proposal is for a 2FE school KCC would also need to find extra capacity elsewhere if the outcome was for a 1FE or half FE school remaining in Tunstall.
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This information has already been shared with a member of Protect Tunstall and on the Tunstall Mums Facebook page. I offer no opinion, I am merely sharing something I think anyone interested in the school discussions will find interesting and useful.

Also please note that the planning permission granted in 2012 for 2 of the 3 "temporary buildings" that house classrooms (accounting for 3 classes) at the current site is about to expire, along with the building that houses the PTA garage and some of the toilets. The previous application in 2012 was objected to by both Swale Borough Council and Tunstall Parish Council (information on what the specific objections were can be found in the report produced at the time). I also offer no opinion on this.

If you want to read some of what I do think, see post 157.