4.31

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Object

Brentwood Local Plan 2016 - 2033 (Pre-Submission, Regulation 19)

Representation ID: 22522

Received: 18/03/2019

Respondent: Dr Philip Gibbs

Legally compliant? Yes

Sound? No

Duty to co-operate? Yes

Representation Summary:

The distribution of secondary schools is wrong, with too many in Brentwood Town. This causes too much unnecessary traffic.

Change suggested by respondent:

close Brentwood county and use site for housing development. use the money to build a school in West Basildon instead

Full text:

Brentwood Schools.

The Town of Brentwood has a significant surplus of secondary school places. There are six secondary schools in a radius of one mile: Brentwood County, St Martins, Shenfield, Brentwood School (independent), Becket Keys and Ursuline Convent. In addition there is another secondary school in Ingatestone and many students from North Brentwood attend the Ongar Academy. Compare this with Basildon town which has a much larger size but only four secondary schools.

Brentwood fills it schools with pupils who travel long distances from places such as West Basildon, Chelmsford and even East London. Clearly the schools are wrongly distributed in the region yet Essex County Council makes no effort to correct it. Brentwood plans for very little housing development in the areas around where these schools are so the problem will persist. They say there will be a new all-through school in Dunton Hills Garden Village, but they know that the size of the development is not sufficient to justify it.

There is a particular problem with lack of secondary school places in West Basildon. Pupils in Langdon Hills are assigned places four miles away in East Basildon because the other three secondary schools in the town are filled up with pupils who live closer.

There is an inordinate amount of road traffic generated by secondary scholars travelling across the region to Brentwood. This is bad for traffic congestion, pollution and social cohesion.

Clearly Basildon and Brentwood councils need to get together with Essex County Council to rethink the distribution of schools. The plans put forward by Brentwood and Basildon at present are set to make the problem even worse rather than better.

I suggest that one of the schools in Brentwood town, such as Brentwood County should be closed immediately. The grounds can be sold for much needed housing development in that area. The money generated can then be used to build a new school near Dunton Village where Basildon Council plan to put playing fields. This school would serve the populations of West Basildon and Dunton Hills. Even if Dunton Hills is not developed there is sufficient demand in West Basildon to fill a new secondary school so this move could be started immediately.