Local School Places or Product Placement for Class Solutions?

Class Solutions…

SCS (think Direct Labour Department ) is an ‘arms length company’ owned in total by SBC. Mr Pickles has described such arrangements as ‘sock puppets’.

Class Solutions is an SBC/SCS design of wooden pods with huge roofs where a 2FE primary school will require 5 18metre x 18metre pods, 15 pitched roofs and 4 flat connecting roofs.  Also known as a Pop-Up School, in which North Swindon MP J Tomlinson has previously shown an interest.

Unbeknown to the public, the Croft was identified as a school site by an unnamed ‘steering group’ in 2009.  No records of these meetings have been forthcoming. Unbeknown to the public, R&D for Class Solutions at the Croft was funded from the SBC CEO’s budget in 2010.  No minute of approval for Class Solutions has yet been forthcoming.

SBC/SCS advertise that a Class Solutions school can be built at 2/3 cost and in 2/3 of the time of a normal school. No substantive evidence has been published in support of this claim. No definition of a normal school is supplied.

SBC/SCS wish to sell Class Solutions to other Local Authorities. The market is awash with companies with a proven track record in the provision of modular buildings or pods for schools.

Government funding for schools is ring fenced. Cllr Renard states that as Class Solutions is an SBC/SCS design, only SCS can build it. SCS pays dividends to SBC which, on receipt, may not be ring fenced.

The White Horse Federation (WHF) who run the Croft School advertise Class Solutions on their web site. The Croft School is the prototype for Class Solutions and the layout and local topography feature in the You tube video shown on the WHF web site. The reality of the prototype doesn’t appear likely to feature in glossy advertising brochures.

Class Solutions is supposedly the design for all new schools in Swindon, but apparently not the 2014 Town Centre primary school at St Joseph’s. Would Crest Nicholson allow the Class Solutions megalith to dwarf Tadpole farm’s homes, or like St Joseph's, would they rely upon their own design?

Class Solutions overwhelms the surrounding area and needs a wide open space to diminish its obtrusive size. Mouldon Hill Country Park would provide open space and provide a pretty backdrop for pictures. 

North Swindon children need local school places.

What it SBC’s priority?

Local School places or Product Placement for Class Solutions? 

This is a guest post