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Democratic inaction over Brent academy plan Last week’s Brent Council Planning Committee meeting about the proposed Wembley City Academy would have done nothing to challenge the public’s current disillusion with politicians and the democratic process. Impassioned, engaged members of the public, armed with well researched arguments based on meeting the needs of the local community, found themselves faced with a group of passive, apathetic councillors who could not summon up one meaningful question between them about one of the most controversial developments in Brent’s recent history. A spat about speaking rights between members of the two Conservative groupings on the council dominated the first part of the meeting but there was no substantial debate between councillors about the merits of building a temporary school on the Wembley Park playing fields. Questions were limited to concerns over the placement of a bus stop and a mini-roundabout. There was no consideration at all of how the quality of education of 4 and 5 year old children would be affected by starting their school life in temporary huts, wedged between two main roads and a busy railway with all the noise and dust of the construction of the permanent building going on all around them. Speakers against the proposal included a local ward councillor, representatives of the Residents Association, the headteacher of Copland High School, Brent NUT and planning consultants advising the Anti-Academy Campaign. Other opponents of the plan, including the Green Party representative were refused permission to speak. The only speakers for the proposal were a member of the Council’s Planning Department and a representative of ARK schools who will run the Academy. The meeting follows a deeply flawed ‘consultation’ process where the Council prefers to emphasise the number of leaflets distributed rather than the actual returns. Fifty-nine responses were received with 75 different reasons for objecting to the development with only two letters of support and 1,556 people signed a petition opposing a privately run school. Despite this clear evidence of local opposition the unofficial Lib-Dem/Labour Party coalition that seems to run education policy, (as distinct from the Lib-Dem/Conservative coalition that runs the Council as a whole), nodded the proposal through. Last week we did not see democracy in action: we saw democratic inaction. Martin Francis Brent Green Party Spokesman on Children, Schools and Families |
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