Fighting for our local Schools

How the new Lord's Hill Academy might look

Local Conservative Councillors yesterday announced that £13m of local council capital funding previously earmarked for Southampton's Building Schools for Future (BSF) programme would be protected.

This money will be combined with the new national national funding that we hope Southampton will receive when the government announces its replacement capital programme for schools.

The money will help to ensure that the city meets future demands for school places and that all Southampton's schools are brought up to a decent state of repair.

As well as lobbying for new government money and fighting to retain the £35m that local Conservatives secured for the city's two academies, we are pressing government to refund the £2.4m in aborted costs that the city council has incurred in preparing for the BSF scheme.

It is shameful that in these difficult economic times, when public sector funding is extremely tight, that local Labour Councillors are maintaining their opposition to the city's two academies and the additional funds to improve the schools, preferring for ideological reasons to see them split across two sites in out of date buildings.

I Will Fight For Local Schools and Colleges

As your Member of Parliament I will fight hard to improve our local schools and colleges.

I am pleased that I have been able to secure millions of pounds of funds for our primary schools. I am also delighted that we are pushing ahead with the rebuilding of two city academies. As a local councillor I helped secure £35m for these schools – money that Southampton Labour Councillors and MPs would have turned down.

We have 5 new secondary school building projects in the pipeline. The only thing holding back approval for these new schools is government sign off. As soon as the government gives the go ahead the city council will enter procurement to build the new schools. My concern is that our local Labour MPs are delaying the projects for political reasons, during the election campaign.

Our Labour MPs have already let the city’s young people down once, by refusing millions of pounds of promised funds to rebuild Taunton’s and Itchen college. It would be shameful for them to put our new secondary schools at risk too.

Green Light for New Learning Campus

Southampton Conservatives are pushing ahead with plans for investment and modernisation of secondary education in the city.

Later this month the Council's Conservative Cabinet are meeting to approve the next steps for the eventual development of 4 new secondary schools in Southampton:

• The Lord's Hill Oasis Academy which is to be built on the 5 acre field site on the northern boundary of the city.
• The Mayfield Oasis Academy which will be developed on the Grove Park School site.
• The relocation of Regents Park Community College to the St Mark’s CE Junior/ former Civil Service Sports Ground site in Freemantle.
• The relocation of the Sholing Technology College to the Itchen College building.

I am delighted that such excellent progress is being made and I am particularly pleased with the work that is going on secure the former Civil Service Sports Ground as school and community playing fields.

Together with Cllr Brian Parnell and Cllr Michael Ball we have represented residents' wishes to protect the Civil Service Sports Ground from housing development and protect one of the last green playing fields in the city centre, and we have sought to secure central government funding (Building Schools for the Future Programme) to build a new school on the St Mark's site to serve the needs of the local community.

In January we will be formally authorising the Council's Director of Resources to take steps to acquire the former Civil Service Sports Association playing fields at the rear of the St Mark’s site from its current owner, Bovis Homes so that it can be developed as a playing field for St Mark’s CE Junior School and Regents Park Community College, and made available for community use.

The Council will work with the governing body of Regents Park Community College, the governing body of St Mark’s CE Junior School and the Board of Education of the Winchester Diocese of the Church of England with the aim of creating a learning campus on the St Mark’s CE Junior School site including both primary and secondary education.

As the newly selected Parliamentary Candidate for Southampton Test, top of my agenda will be pressing government to provide funds for these and other schools in the city.