- where Serco wishes to move Haywood High ...
or is it one great big Red Herring?
Bank
Top/Acreswood fields, an important community asset, is an inappropriate
site for a new school because:
- It is being well used by local people for walking and sport.
- It is an excellent area for wildlife and fauna.
- There is a playground
on the site for use by local children.
- It is fringed by many elderly people's flats and bungalows.
- It will be difficult to create access without environmental impact and disruption to local residents.
- It is being well used as a training area for the local junior fishing club.
- When reclaimed from a marl hole, the residents were given the impression that the site would be permanently green.
- There are many scattered methane vent pipes from previous landfill.
- The site has very poor drainage.
- There is a public right of way through the area.
Please
click on the thumbnails below to view a larger picture.
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Playground
at Acreswood Road /
Bank Hall Road.
We received some correspondance about this playground:
"I’m
not sure what anyone else thinks, but as a local resident myself to
this land – it has a recently refurbished play area for younger
children – which is the only one in the locality. The closest
park
then I think is Burslem ? Not only do Serco want to cause un-ease to
older students – this will target the ‘play’ of toddlers and primary
students". |
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 Acreswood playing fields - Community sports facilities. |
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 If you look carefully, there is a methane vent pipe disguised as a tree trunk. Very close to houses, isn't it? |
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 This vent could be made into a monument of some sort. |
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 Have we seen this vent before, or is it yet another? |
 Looking over Burslem Golf Club. |
 Is it a submarine periscope? No, it's a methane vent! |
 Oh dear, another vent. |
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 Up the little path to the right on the way back to High Lane. |
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 High Lane just past Greenbank Road (Mill Hill side). |
 Along High Lane to Golf Club entrance. |
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 Government guidelines state that phone masts should not be sited near schools without consultation because children may be more vulnerable to radio frequency emissions than adults. Should new schools be sited near phone masts? |
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 Boarded-up Mill Hill Home |
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To move the school across High Lane
would also have to entail construction of safe road crossing points for
the pupils. There would probably have to be two or three extra
crossings. A simple Zebra crossing with
anti-skid carriageway surfacing and associated street lighting should
cost in the region of £10,000 (figures from Leicester County
Council,
based on the 2005/2006 financial year (http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/highways/road_improvements/integrated_transport_home/road_safety_gallery.htm).
Pelican Crossings with associated
street lighting and anti-skid
carriageway surfacing probably cost around £35,000 each. Sounds a
bit on the
expensive side, but we can live with that. To construct a Zebra
Crossing, you would think that you need a couple of workmen, a few pots
of black and
white paint, two Belisha beacons, and the odd roadworks sign. Not so!
Recently the Highways Agency
revealed that it spends an incredible £114,000 on each new
pedestrian
crossing. For some unknown reason, the figure for the familiar black
and white crossing includes £11,000 for "design work". A further
£16,000 is spent on the beacons, electrical wiring and road signs
while
the remaining £87,000 is swallowed up by labour cost. How much more inflated this would be in
Stoke-on-Trent is anybody's guess! New
crossings are essential if the school is to be moved. The cost is
prohibitive. Another valid reason not to move the School.
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After detailing all the
points against resiting Haywood on Bank Top, we can only assume that
Serco have had the same thoughts.
Be prepared for an announcement from Serco that they want to move Haywood somewhere totally different (back to the D-Road?).
We need to be prepared to fight any move.