On Wednesday the 20thof June our latest planning application to extend the buildings and car park to enable the Government to fund us as an Academy was rejected.
The main objections were that we are getting too large for this size of village, that the proposed car park is not suitable, and that we would not actually use it.
The planning committee was reminded that we already have planning permission to expand the school that is valid till 2009. If we went ahead with this existing permission we could have more children at the school than the limit of 330 specified by the Academy plan without offering any solution to our traffic and parking issues.
Whilst there were a lot more positive comments from the councilors on the committee about the quality of Steiner Education, the need for diversity, and the fact we had been here for 24 years, they still felt, reluctantly, that the proposed development was going to be too large for the location and that we had not adequately answered the parking question.
It was therefore rejected with their understanding that we had already set in motion an appeal against the rejection of our first application in January 2007.
The DfES has confirmed their continuing commitment to our becoming an Academy, and they will be putting the necessary funds and people behind the appeal process.
This will take the form of a Full Public Inquiry and in the next 2 weeks we will know when the date for the hearing will be (this should be sometime between October 2007 and January 2008).
In the meantime and for the foreseeable future the school will continue to operate as normal.
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