19th March 2007

As many of you will be aware, our plans to renovate our old school buildings and build new facilities for the school and the local community have recently been rejected by Herefordshire’s Southern Area Planning sub-committee. As we re-submit those plans we are acutely aware that, despite our good intentions, we have not done well enough in inviting the village community to be part of this project, and in explaining what we are trying to achieve by becoming a state-funded school under the Academy legislation. The planning decision was a surprise for us as we’d worked hard on the consultation process. We had the support of planning officers, the Local Education Authority, English Heritage, Welsh Water and the Highways Department. And we know we had support from many in the village community. However, we hadn’t realised how strongly some others, including the Parish Council, felt against the project. Listening to the comments from Planning Committee members and from the Parish Council has made us realise that there is still a lot of misunderstanding about our proposal. The information we are setting out here is an attempt to put over some plain facts about the project so that the local community can make up its own mind. Some key points:     -  The growth in school places will be just over 11%     -  The new building will not ruin the view from the church (in fact, it will be lower than the previous hall we have permission to build)     -  The village will not suffer from more school traffic (funding will enable us to implement our green transport plan and thus reduce our traffic)     -  New facilities will be made available to the local community of Much Dewchurch To explain things in more detail we’ve set out some Frequently Asked Questions. These deal with some of the questions and criticisms about our school and this project. If there is anything you want to know that we have not covered here we will be only too pleased to talk with you, show you the plans and listen to your worries (and even your enthusiasm!). We do believe that if the residents of Much Dewchurch could see how genuine we are in wanting to the village to share in the school’s future, then the project would have the local community’s full backing.

 

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