John Kelly Boys and John Kelly Girls schools are the scandal of the moment. For years, these schools, which are next to each other in Dollis Hill, have been overdue a rebuild.
The last Labour administration in Brent agreed to finance a compulsory purchase order (CPO) on the adjacent land to help the rebuild. The current schools are squeezed into a site only about a third of the size recommended for the number of pupils. That means that they have very little in terms of sports facilities (OfSted said they were "barely adequate"). It also means that the sole entrance for vehicles regularly causes traffic chaos.
The schools also need the new space so they can "decant" during the rebuilding process i.e. keep the schools going on one part of the site whilst building elsewhere.
It looked like the schools were finally getting the money for the rebuild by becoming Academies (Crest Boys and Crest Girls). Then in June, without telling the governors or teachers or the new sponsor, Brent's Lib Dem / Tory Executive slipped out a report saying that the Council would not buy the land after all.
That would mean the schools retained inadequate sports facilities, the single vehicle access and that the rebuild would take 43 months. Fortunately, the governors were able to persuade the Lib Dems to defer a decision for a month.
Why did the Lib Dems rat on the deal to buy the land? I suspect they want to grab the money that was put aside in order to shore up their budget. Perhaps getting back the £15 million that they stuck in Icelandic Banks last year would be a better option than raiding school budgets.
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