To ensure that this response is given full exposure the reply from Cllr Cambridge has been copied from Comments to a full posting. Slight editing has been done, solely to highlight separate issues, ie no content has been added or removed.
I am, as ever, happy to rebalance your narrative. See Edit Post “How to Help Thomson House: The End of a Bright Idea?” ‹ EastSheenMatters — WordPress
Thomson House, although part of a Trust and not under the Local Authority, is an incredibly precious and popular school.
I hear they want to look to move to the STAG Brewery site and the council has said, despite the school being leaseholders of 27 Sheen Lane, they are at total liberty to explore every option with the DfE and the Developers, There is no block whatsoever for this.
Regarding safety, the council has taken strides to help, including [making] Vernon Road [a] School Street, 20 mph [speed limits], Idling Action Days, a consultation on Idling Zones of which this area would be priority, new pedestrian markings on the crossing and a push for a countdown clock with SWR/Network Rail.
Coming up after May is a meeting I have facilitated between the school and Cllr Ehmann to connect the key people.
One plea, perhaps instead of playing politics with a much loved school’s concerns and issues, you come on-board with workable solutions to the safety of the site because it may be the DfE are not for funding a Primary School new build, having shown ambivalence to a Secondary School. It will be vital to continue to listen and act on safety concerns.
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EastSheenMatters does not ‘play politics’; it merely seeks to draw to local public attention matters which might otherwise not be made public or adequately explored. But we leave readers to draw their own conclusions!
Safety concerns should certainly be in everyone’s minds, so if you have ideas beyond those raised above, send them to Cllr Cambridge – preferably with a copy to EastSheenMatters! But it does raise the question of whether, say, having buggies (or 1200 secondary students) make their way across the level crossing at rush hour times can ever be adequately safe.
One important difference, of course, between a primary school and a secondary school is the size of the footprint.
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It’s a bit rich to accuse the report of “playing politics” when the report was complaining about precisely that in the councillors’ behaviour – that they were having a great time trying to outdo each in rubbishing the proposal. And as Councillor Cambridge must know, the idea is not simply to require DfE funding for a new school but to tie it to the development of social housing on the existing site. There may be all manner of flaws in the plan but that does not excuse councillors from treating the request for it to be studied with such flagrant contempt.
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A safe solution was proposed in evidence put to the STAG inquiry by a transport witness.
Whether or not a change is made to the presence of Thomson House primary in the locality, the extra movement demands caused by the major part of the STAG permitted proposals warrant a significant safety improvement at the Sheen lane level crossing. A sensitively designed stepped-ramp footbridge to replace the original bridge would attract pedestrians and cyclists to use a far safer and easier means of crossing the railway rather than leaving them to wait for long periods spilling over the Sheen Lane carriageway.
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