10:23pm Wednesday 17th March 2010
By Mary Cummings - community correspondent
The rebuild will now be delayed, as a result of a late legal challenge from parents of Gordonbrock backed by the Brockley Society.
The group is challenging the legality of Lewisham Council’s planning consent for the project, as well as the need for the partial demolition of the schools’ Edwardian buildings and decant of its pupils.
It has now given the Council 14 days to respond, after which it will make an application to the court for the removal of building consent and an injunction against demolition.
The parents are also hoping that these latest proceedings will force the Council and school governors to consider an alternative proposal they have put forward, which they say would involve a phased refurb, minimisng the need for a decant.
On the other side of the debate, the school has said that its greatest fear now is that any significant delay in building the new school will risk losing the funding, which is time limited.
It said that having already been in a similar position once before, losing funding would be a disaster for the school, stating that “children would continue to use outside toilets, have small classrooms and have no access to a quality school library.
“All designs are a compromise and we believe that Lewisham’s design is a good educational solution given the constraints of a small site….”
Of paramount importance in all of this, is the need to minimise any disruption to our children’s education.
We await the outcome of this latest challenge and the Council’s response, to see what, if any compromise, can be made while bearing this important fact in mind.
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