PLEASE RESPOND TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANCONSULTATION BY 13TH DECEMBER

The Neighbourhood Plan states that Goring Primary School ‘occupies a special place in the village’ (p. 90), and includes it as a Strategic Project. What changes can be made to fulfil the potential of thisand make the most of the opportunities new development in Goring offers?

It is great that the school has been included as a strategic project. However, it is important that updating or renewing the school facilities is also included within the scope of the strategic project wording, rather than focusing only on the feasibility study – CIL money should be used for school improvements, not just for a study to determine options.

The school should be treated as an exceptional case, just as the Plan provides for further affordable housing on exceptional sites. If the feasibility study that the school and Parish Council are undertakingrecommends relocatingthe school, we need to ensure that the Plan allows this.

Capacity estimates are inherently speculative – particularly over the long term. In order to reflect this, the Plan should support the Parish Council/school working group which is reviewing options to redevelop the school with the flexibility to increase capacityif necessary, and not rely on minimum housing/infill scenarios to argue that all additional in-catchment children will be accommodated at the current school.

The condition of the school is an essential element in the sustainability of the Plan and it should be within the scope. The feasibility study may conclude that significant spending on patching up the school is suboptimal and that the buildings have reached the end of their life. The Plan should therefore not state that the school’s condition can be addressed by fundraising, but should acknowledge that a range of solutions is currently possible.

If you agree with these points, the table below sets outwhatyou could include in your feedback, together with any further comments you have.

Submit feedback here by 5pm, Wednesday 13th December. All comments relate just to the Plan document.

Chapter and section / Objective, policy, action or strategic project / Comment
Summary of the Plan, strategic projects section; chapter 1, section1.6, 1g;
chapter 3, section 3.2, issue 4;
chapter 11, section 11.6.3, Action.04 / Strategic Project – the school / The strategic project wording should explicitly include the redevelopment of the school itself. Including a strategic project relating to ‘a plan for the future of the school’ is excellent, but should go further: it is currently simply a review of the options with no provision for meaningful delivery of a solution. The strategic project wording should state explicitly that the redevelopment of the school is part of the strategic project.
Funding is one of the biggest challenges the school faces so it should be expressly stated that CIL funding will be used for the redevelopment of the school, whatever form this takes. In addition, the words ‘as appropriate’ appear only in respect of CIL funding for the school strategic project on p. 110. These should be removed so the allocation of CIL funding is determined across all strategic projects according to their respective need.
Chapter 11, sections 11.6 & 11.6.3 / Objective.12 & Action.04 / Amend the Plan to provide for an exception site for the school (as the Plan does for insufficient affordable housing). The Plan rightly ‘recognises the considerable concern in the village about the future of the school and shares the desire of residents to have the best possible education facilities and adequate capacity to accommodate the children residing in the village’ (p.110).Yetthe wording of Objective 12 and Action 4 rules out the possibility of expanding the school onto the Bourdillon Field, relocating the school, and building ‘enabling’ residential developmenton a new site to fund the school should any of these be necessary.These options do not ‘adhere to the spatial strategy and landscape policies of this Plan and all other Plan Policies’ (p.91) – eg, the policy for protecting open spaces of public value (p. 40, p.84), and identifying all available and suitable sites for development (p. 44).The simplest solution is to provide for an appropriately worded exception site for the school. The Plan provides for exception sites to address insufficient affordablehousing (Policy.04, p. 38) – this should also be done for the school to keep all options for expansion, relocation and funding open, while the school/Parish Council initiative in conductinga feasibility analysis proceeds. Appropriate exception site drafting would enable the Plan’s spatial strategy, landscape policies, and other policies to remain as currently worded, subject to the other comments made here.
Chapter 11, 11.6.2 / Objective 12 / Infill and windfall have been ignored when considering school capacity; the Plan should therefore state that options to redevelop the school so it has the flexibility to increase capacity if needed are being considered as part of the strategic project, and this objective should be endorsed and adopted as part of the Plan. Forecasts of school applications resulting from new housing are based only on the minimum of 94 houses, and ignore the estimate of 45 infill houses (p.40). Capacity estimates should be based on a minimum of 139 houses.No allowance is made for windfall or exception sites contemplated by the Plan (section 5.3 and Policy 04). OCC projections show that the additional school-aged children provided by 139 houses means that the school would be very nearly exceeding its capacity even at this level of development. Therefore, even a slight underestimate of increase in school numbers (either by the infill estimate being wrong or OCC’s projections underestimating pupil numbers as they have in the past) would mean the Plan does not meet its Objective12.Infill estimates should also include the parish of Ipsden given that it falls within the school’s catchment area as the Plan notes on p. 91.
OCC has stated that it supports the redevelopment of the school to include the flexibility to increase capacity, and SODC’s Infrastructure Delivery Plan which supports its Local Plan includes the provision of around 0.5FE additional capacity at the school. The Plan should therefore be less categoricalabout school capacity not being an issue.The only sustainable solution is for the Plan to state that options to redevelop the school so it has the flexibility to increase capacity if needed are being considered as part of the strategic project. This objective shouldbe endorsed and adopted as part of the Plan.
Chapter 3,section 3.2, Issue3;
chapter 11, 11.6.1 / Objective 12; Strategic Project – the school / The condition of the school is an essential element in the sustainability of the Plan and should be within the scope.Given the emphasis on existing infrastructure coping with additional housing, the Plan should properly address the condition and constraints of the school, and acknowledge a range of potential outcomes emerging from the feasibility study being undertaken. As such, Objective 12 should be amended to ‘Provision of renewed facilities of the appropriate capacity for the Goring Primary School’.The Plan correctly recognises the importance of the condition of the school and that it is a concern for residents (eg, section 11.6.2, p.71; section B.2.2, p.107 of the Sustainability Appraisal), but condition is then excluded from the scope of the Plan. Failing to address the condition means the Planfails to meet its important sustainability aim to ensure that Goring’s amenities ‘are not merely protected but are developed and further enhanced over the next few years’,and is not compliant with SODC’s sustainability Objective 3 ‘to improve…community facilities and services’, as well as Objectives 1 and 17 (Sustainability Appraisal, p.43).
Fundraising to patch up ‘the backlog in maintenance’ (p.91) does not reflect the Plan’s focus on sustainability.The Plan should treat both capacity and condition as challenges to be addressed. The condition of the school is an essential element in the sustainability of the Plan and it should be within the scope.