Plagued by problems

10:51am Wednesday 1st June 2005

CONTROVERSIAL plans to build a new secondary school in the borough are facing delays.

Ladywell Leisure Centre is to be demolished to make way for a £22m four-form school and pupils were due to start at a temporary site on Leahurst Road in 2006.

But council papers released yesterday reveal Lewisham Mayor Steve Bullock is having to look at four new options after finding the temporary site is no longer available.

Instead of being used to house pupils for three years while the Ladywell site is completed, the former Ennersdale Primary School site will now go to Northbrook Secondary School which is undertaking its own expansion programme.

The change has been made because the original proposals threatened £150m of Government funding the council has just secured to improve or rebuild every secondary in the borough.

Now Northbrook will build a new school annex on Leahurst Road, which will eventually house the lower school, and will be used for the entire school while the main site is re-built.

The money, which will arrive in two phases in 2007 and 2009, will see schools brought up to standard by 2011 catching up on what the Mayor called "50 years of failure to invest in secondaries".

The four options for the new school at Ladywell are: Create a temporary school on Mountsfield Park; Create a temporary school behind the town hall Laurence House; Scrap plans for a temporary school, bring forward the closure of Ladywell Leisure Centre and open the new school by 2008; Scrap plans for a temporary school, but stick to the original timescale closing the pool in 2007 and opening it in 2009.

But the news means a decision is needed over the future of the Ladywell plans.

The proposals have already seen huge opposition to the pool closure, which was reopened last year after a £1.8m 20-month refurbishment, and parents' groups claim the school is not big enough and will not meet the needs of the north of the borough.

Mr Bullock said: "There is no ideal solution but I am attempting to find a solution which is deliverable and which meets the difficult needs that we're dealing with.

"One thing I have to consider is whether parents would be prepared to send their children to a temporary school site which would be different from a temporary site in an existing school building."

He added he did not want to set up a new school which gets off to a bad start.

The Mayor denied he would make a decision with one eye on next year's local elections: "I will back the best option based on the information in front of me.

"I am not going to spin this decision and I think the voters recognise that."