Planning committee meets on 12 May

We're nearly there! We have a date of 12 May for the planning committee to make a decision on the redevelopment of Horizon school.

You still have a little time if you haven't already written your objection to the plans.

To help those of you who want to write but aren't sure what to say, we have outlined the broad concerns you have been expressing in meetings, emails and at your doorsteps. Pick whatever helps you and use it – if you can put it in your own words that's great, but if not – use these ones instead.

For your comments to be properly considered by the planning department, you need to get them in sooner rather than later though. Every comment makes a difference – especially a personal one from the heart.

You can email your objections to our planning officer: steve.andrews@hackney.gov.uk; do ask for an email acknowledgment.

The plans are on http://www.hackney.gov.uk/planning.htm plan number: 2011/0383. A paper copy (actually a huge  pile of papers!) is in Coffee Corner on the corner of Belgrade and Wordsworth Road as well.

What you have been telling us

In the plans we are being sold a landmark “civic building”. But it has no reference to the citizens who will have to live with it.

·       This small school site will double its intake and triple its staff (staff/pupil ratio will be 1:1). This will bring already significant traffic and noise levels beyond those acceptable in a dense residential area.

·       There will be around 300 people on site with all the deliveries, traffic, rubbish and noise this will bring with it.

·       The plans say it will bring in children from outside the borough for “revenue generation”, despite being told it needed to be that size for Hackney’s children.

·       The whole plan is too large and extravagant for the available land and has been designed around building a road to drop children off rather than educational requirements.

·       The site is so dense there is no room for any future change of remit (the history of the school is that it changes its intake criteria regularly).

·       A proposed “light installation” will drown the neighbouring houses in light every night till 11pm and be 10 times stronger than the light from the adjacent houses to create an art feature! (See Design and Access statement Appendix 7)

   * The density of the planned new building means:

- Around 30 trees will be cut down. This is not supported by Hackney’s own TPO department and according to them, plans to replace with new mature trees are unrealistic and unworkable.

- A road being built into the school land to drop off the children will bizarrely double as a playground. The road will accommodate at least 7 buses twice daily and additional transport throughout the day – despite earlier assurances to the contrary. This will include refuse trucks and kitchen deliveries for 300 people.

- Five parking spaces will go on Prince George Road simply to accommodate the turning circle of these huge trucks.

- There are 10 parking spaces allocated for the 150 staff on site.

- Almost all the open and green space (which we enjoy and daily see Horizon pupils enjoying) will be built over. The children will have almost nowhere to run around.

- The drop-off road is directly adjacent to residents’ tiny gardens (which are only 10-foot long) so psychologically and physically hems in locals’ back gardens. It exits back onto the residential road alongside houses, where currently there is open green space.

- The entirely new huge facade of the school on Prince George Road (currently an open green play area) will dominate a very narrow street of modest Victorian houses.

- The existing residential road (currently with no school entrance) already struggles with heavy traffic usage and there is a history of problems and road rage. Residents’ parking bays will be decreased and a new loading facility (used daily for the school) will take the place of other spaces.

- There has never been a “moving traffic” survey done – in other words no proper traffic plan has been developed despite the huge increase in staff and pupils; despite being told the new road will be used throughout the day; despite the loss of parking to accommodate the buses turning onto the small street.

- A roof garden is planned, which will breach privacy and add yet more height to the buildings with railings that aren’t shown on the plans. This has been added at the eleventh hour and without any consultation. We can only infer that this is to create more outside space lacking in the design.

- The statutory bat survey was not done properly – in fact it was done in December when bats are hibernating!

- The plans take no account of the tree preservation orders that have been granted, which is another example of residents views simply being ignored.

Why is the school so BIG? not because of Hackney children

Here's what BSF says:  'As part of its strategy for SEN provision in the Borough, the Learning Trust are looking to attract SEN pupils from adjacent Boroughs [i.e., students whose local authorities will pay]. The school is being designed to a capacity at 150 pupils which allows for the impact of this policy on pupil numbers.'

And this

• at the expense of the school's own pupils who will be corralled in small outdoors spaces
• at the expense of the local community which will be overwhelmed by a huge building, considerable environmental degradation, increased traffic, decreased parking spaces

Money over pupils' interests and needs, the quality of life of the local community, over scores of felled trees and the destruction of a local ecosystem squeezed by commercial and housing development, traffic and environmental degradation.

Not enough oudoor space for Horizon kids says a report of the Hackney Independent Forum for Parents/Carers of Children with Disabilities

Despite the assurances of the Horizon School Head KT Khan that parents have no concerns about the plans to redevelop Horizon School, a report by the Hackney Independent Forum for Parents/Carers of Children with Disabilities chair raises a host of concerns such as the lack of funds to equip the sensory spaces the school plans provide for, the lack of plans for outdoor space equipment for the school and the lack of sufficient outdoor space.

As local residents have repeatedly raised these issues only to be dismissed by the School Management, Council and BSF the revelation that Hackney HIP has shared similar concerns raises a number of important questions as to whose interests the proposed redevelopment serves if stakeholders' concerns are so easily and readily dismissed.

The report that can be accessed at the Hackney HIP website also confirms residents' concerns that the Council, School Management and BSF have been trying to overcome potential objections to the scheme by recklessly giving reassuring answers to stakeholders' legitimate questions. Thus, the HIP chair reports that, in response to her questions about the lack of funds for equipment for the indoor and outdoor sensory spaces and the playground

the head said they hoped to raise money somehow – perhaps seeking a donation from Alan Sugar foundation as a possibility, although the officer from BSF thought there was enough money for everything.

We cannot help wondering if there is anyone that can really give us honest and authoritative answers to these and many more questions, including why this massive building complex is forcefully pushed forward without the team that planned and implements it being able to clearly articulate what it will look like, how it will affect the residents', families' and pupils' daily lives or whether there will be adequate funding for the children who will populate it. It is time we got some honest answers!