On 12 January 2025 it was noted here https://childlawobserver10.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=4601&action=edit that it was rumoured that the DfE was minded to cancel Livingstone Academy.
The position is gradually hardening. You should be able to read a confirmatory statement to that effect on: Free_schools_pipeline_list_December_2025.xlsx , except you can’t because going into that link produces ‘error’. And who produces a ‘pipeline list? or as it elsewhere described a mainstream pipeline review worksheet? Civil service speak. And it has taken them over a year to produce a ‘worksheet’, while local plans and the site fester.
Meanwhile there is a statement floating around confirming that ‘the Secretary of State for Education is minded to cancel Livingstone Academy West London, following careful consideration of evidence gathered for this project’. Stakeholders have been informed and there is an opportunity for them to provide any further relevant information (not already provided) that they think should be taken into account, before the Secretary of State makes a final decision.
We still do not know when that final decision will be taken, although speculation is for January, but it would be difficult to see how at this stage there could be further relevant information not already provided, sufficient to move the SoS mind.
So if common sense finally prevails, what happens next? A Viability Review is required in accordance with the section 106 agreement attached to the appeal decision. But what that means seems to depend on how the Council and the Developers interpret it.
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