Camden is set to receive £1 million from the government to pay for additional primary school places. In May this year over 140 Camden children were without an offer of a place in a reception class, and Belsize was particularly badly affected.

This funding is a tribute to the amazing campaign waged by parents with the help of war councillors. If we hadn’t fought and kept fighting, we would not have got the temporary facility in Courthope Road, and we would not have been given this £1m towards a new school. It’s not enough for a new school, but it will certainly help. The council is currently exploring a number of options, including expansion of existing schools and new sites in and around Belsize.

Last Tuesday evening, we held the latest meeting of the Belsize Local Area Forum. Those attending had the chance to decide how to spend the £10,000 pounds allocated to Belsize. There was a list of five options boiled down from the debate at the previous meeting. In the end, although many people were keen on funding food growing projects or helping the Belsize Library, the vote was in favour of giving the money to the Winchester Project and St Mary’s Centre – two local youth charities. Both of these do excellent work with young people from Belsize and the surrounding area and will come up with proposals as to how to spend the money. There may even be some of the money left over for a food-growing project.

The turn out at the meeting was a little disappointing, but it was nonetheless a good advertisement for the Local Area Forum scheme, with a lively discussion preceding the vote. The scheme is far from perfect – the low participation rates undermine the representativeness of decisions made and the level of funds available are currently fairly insignificant. However, as a long term project it has a lot of potential. If further funds are made available each year, along with support to improve participation, it could eventually prove to be a powerful tool for truly local decision making and democracy.

Fantastic news – Camden Council has won a bid to make Belsize and the surrounding area a Home Energy Efficiency Programme pilot for the whole of London. That means up to 1,000 households will each receive 10 energy and water efficiency measures installed for free. The aim is to test the concept for the whole of London. Those who have hard-to-heat homes which need solid wall insulation and double glazing will also be offered the chance to take part in a new Pay-As-You-Save pilot, which Cllr Alexis Rowell spent a year arguing for with the government. Basically the PAYS scheme will mean Camden Council lending money to homeowners who will pay it back out of energy bill savings or when they sell the property. This is great for Belsize and, if the two pilots are successful, for London and the UK as well. If you would like a free energy efficiency audit of your home, then please contact the Small Steps team at Camden Council on 0800 801 738 or by emailing info@smallstepsenergyvisits.co.uk.

Good news at last on primary school places. Following a suggestion from a Belsize parent, Camden Council has secured the use of classrooms for up to 90 children at the Hampstead Hill School site in Courthope Road in Gospel Oak. It’s not ideal – Courthope Road is too far to the east – but it’s a lot better than nothing. Parents are to be congratulated for their patience, determination and ingenuity. If Camden had stuck to its Plan A – temporary classrooms on state school sites – then we certainly wouldn’t have had a solution for September. 

The new site will be directly managed by Camden’s Education Dept and will be open to all those children still unplaced. With 60+ pupils on the site it should be easier to persuade the government of the need to fund a new primary school or expand existing schools in the area. Please could as many of you as possible reply positively to the consultation: http://camden.xarg.co.uk/surveys/respond?survey_id=365476  If you have any detailed questions about the plan, then please do get in touch.

Healthcare for London recently consulted on proposals to improve stroke services in London by ensuring that all Londoners live within 30 minutes’ ambulance drive of world-class specialist services. The aim is that all Londoners should be assessed, diagnosed and treated within 30 minutes of arriving at hospital. It is proposed that there should be a network of eight Hyper Acute Stroke Units across London, including one at University College Hospital in Camden. These units will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is also proposed that the Royal Free, should be part of a network of local stroke units across London. The excellent unit already in place there will not be downgraded at all.

These proposals were prepared by Healthcare for London, and drafted by an expert panel involving clinicians. They were endorsed by Andrew Way, the Chief Executive of the Royal Free. It was therefore really disappointing that Labour and Tory councillors have been falsely suggesting that the proposals are bad for the Royal Free. What a dreadful example of politicians using the NHS as a way of getting cheap headlines!

The public meeting on 14th May was very well attended. Parents made it very clear to the education department how serious the problem is and just how stressed, frustrated and angry they are about the lack of primary school places in the area.  Andrew Mennear, the executive member for education, and his department were unable to provide parents with the reassurances they were seeking so many left feeling disappointed. Two positives came out of the meeting:

1) The education department now accepts the seriousness of the problems and will be taking action to find solutions.

2) A working group, open to all concerned parties, was set up to assist the education department with their task, by providing ideas and direction to the work.Essentially there are two related solutions. The first is providing primary school places for the intake this year, which requires a short term solution such as adding temporary classrooms to existing school. The second is providing a long term solution, which would mean building a new primary school or finding a way to significantly expand an existing school on a permanent basis.

Since the public meeting some progress has been made, but has been slower than hoped. The working group has met twice and has served to focus the efforts of the education department. The good news is that Camden is now committed to providing two temporary classrooms for this year’s intake. The frustrating news is that we still have no indication of where those classrooms will be or what the admissions criteria will be used for the extra places.

The next meeting of the working group will be at 7pm on the 23rd June at the Swiss Cottage Community Centre. We hope that by then the education department will be able to provide parents with more concrete information. Please come along. The key point is that many parents are facing difficult choices about their children’s education. As one frustrated mother put it at the last working group meeting ‘I need answers yesterday!’

Camden Council is holding a meeting this Thursday 14th May 2009 at 6.30pm at Swiss Cottage School (please note new venue) to discuss primary school provision in the area.

Please come to show support and to contribute to the meeting. The more people we have the better.

Camden Council have admitted that they were unable to offer over 200 children one of their preferred schools. About 133 of these children live in Camden. The other 71 children live in neighbouring boroughs. Alarmingly 75 of these children live in NW3, and 37 of those live in Belsize Ward. The problem is bigger than we had thought.

We look forward to seeing many of you on 14th May at 6.30pm.

Just in case you don’t know here are the results of the Belsize by-election:

Aptowitzer, Naomi (Green) – 109 votes
Benardout, Gary (Conservative) – 952 votes
Birch, Sean (Labour) – 270 votes
Simon, Tom (Liberal Democrat) - 1,136 votes

Thanks to all those who supported Tom. He’s looking forward to representing everyone in Belsize whether they voted for him or not.