BECKENHAM: Langley Park School for Boys rebuild given green light for second time

2:56pm Wednesday 4th November 2009

By Scott Mullins

IT COULD be second time lucky for teachers and governors after councillors once again gave the green light to a new secondary school in Beckenham.

Last summer, Langley Park School for Girls and the neighbouring Langley Park School for Boys began a long running dispute over a complete rebuild of the boys’ school.

Both schools are on the same patch of Metropolitan Open Lane in Hawksbrook Lane.

The conflict began when Bromley Council approved a planning application which would have seen the majority of the buildings at the boys’ school pulled down and replaced with state-of-the-art classrooms, a concert hall and sports pitches.

Governors at the girls’ school unsuccessfully appealed the decision at the High Court after claiming the planning process had not been followed properly.

They continued their fight at the Court of Appeal and in July judges reversed the decision and said Bromley Council should not have approved the plans.

The boys’ school duly submitted a second planning application and councillors voted to allow it at a meeting last night (November 3).

Parts of the school playing fields will be lost during the rebuild and, talking at the meeting, head teacher at Langley Park School for Girls, Jan Sage, said: “They are part of a valuable open expanse which has the highest value in Metropolitan Open Land terms.

“It can’t be right for the council to agree the current application. This is just common sense.”

She also admitted her school had already spent around £170,000 fighting the first planning application.

Councillor Peter Dean said the committee should not block the school from benefiting from £38m improvements.

He said: “This case revolves around the expression ‘very special circumstances’.

“There will inevitably be an impact on the environment but is it justified? Yes.”

Councillor Simon Fawthrop was the planning committee’s only member to oppose the plans in the final vote.

He said: “This is clearly a harm to Metropolitan Open Land - it is damaging it quite considerably.

“Whether there is money there or whether the school is good, bad or indifferent doesn’t matter.”

Langley Park School for Boys was chosen by the council as the one school in the borough to benefit from government’s Building Schools for the Future programme.