Mouldon Hill School? The Facts According to the Residents of Oakhurst

Some parents in Oakhurst have moved to get a neighbourhood school place or are faced with moving.  The alternative is to send their child to a school that they did not choose and travelling miles to drop their child off.  The current Secretary of State for Education may talk at length about parental choice but for many Oakhurst families there has never been  a choice.  If  they opt for their Oakhurst school then they may end up in Rodbourne Cheney, Pinehurst or a school outside of the Northern Sector altogether. They may also face appeals with no outcome except disappointment.  That is a reality for parents and young children in Oakhurst.


In a further twist of the debacle of school place planning in North Swindon, we are told by Oakhurst residents that families will have to choose a school place out of the Oakhurst neighbourhood or another school place out of the Oakhurst neighbourhood.  As this choice forms part of the current administration's consultation then they must consider it acceptable for Oakhurst families.

In fact residents tell us that one of the local councillors, Toby Elliott, who lives in Oakhurst, has stated publicly in Council that a school at Mouldon Hill is an Oakhurst school.  Another local councillor, Emma Faramarzi, has publicly stated that this is a Taw Hill school.  Yet again the councillors are out of touch and cannot be talking to the people who have lost appeals.  This is another example of Council policy where local councillors support the dumping of 1,700 homes on Tadpole Farm and have no concern about where the children will be educated.

For those in Oakhurst who have been more discerning with the facts, here are some of them:

1. There is a desperate need for more primary school places in Oakhurst. Some children in Oakhurst are being educated, not by parental choice, in areas such as Pinehurst, Rodbourne Cheney and West Swindon.
2. Swindon Borough Council (SBC) have identified that the main areas for primary school reception place demand are in Oakhurst and Redhouse.
3. The Primary Care Trust (PCT) data for births has shown for a number of years that there would be an increase in demand for nursery/reception places in North Swindon building to 2012/2013 (841 children) and then dropping to a level of about 770 to 780 children per year  for the next 6 years. These figures are not new and work on a rolling 10-year basis according to the SBC consultation document.
4. These will not be new places but are based on demographics and will only cater for the demand that has been predicted for years.
5. If the school is built at Mouldon Hill then it will set a precedent to build on our public open space at the Country Park and reduce the green corridor called the Cricklade Country Way. This provides a buffer between development in Wiltshire and Swindon. There are already 1,695 houses approved around this corridor at Tadpole Farm and 700 houses at Ridgeway Farm.
6. As the new school for Tadpole Farm will not be built until the occupation of the 564^th house there will no additional primary school places provided for new families moving in. These families will not have been included in the PCT data and, therefore, do not form part of this consultation.
7. There will also be pressure on school places from families moving into Ridgeway Farm and this has not been factored into this consultation.
8. There will be great difficulty accessing the school for families who live in Oakhurst and Redhouse, “it must be noted that there are potentially a number of issues that could arise through locating a primary school on the Mouldon Hill site: linked to access off the dual carriageway and across the Swindon and Cricklade Railway line, the need to bridge a floodplain to reach the school site and to reroute power lines that traverse the site. These issues could have a significant impact on the cost of any new provision on top of the construction costs....” (paragraph 3.23 SBC cabinet report dated 12th December 2013).  There is no mention of the safety of families using the school.
9. Residents tell us that they are concerned that they won’t get into the new school because of the distance and because of future demand not being properly calculated.  At the moment, unless a family lives within roughly 200m of Oakhurst Community Primary School then, after all the other admissions priorities have been taken into account, there will be no place available in reception. Children who have received a place in the nursery cannot be sure of gaining a reception place the following year.
10. The only way to ensure that Oakhurst children have got a higher probability of getting a neighbourhood primary school place is to build the school in Oakhurst. Oakhurst residents have been telling us that they need an Oakhurst school for Oakhurst children. Oakhurst families want a quality education for their children in their neighbourhood. This will enable our children to learn, play and grow up together.
11. Oakhurst people have also been telling us that they would like to see other sites taken into account or a school built immediately at Tadpole Farm. This would meet the shortfall in school places for children within the areas of Oakhurst/Redhouse.