Bid to switch new St Albans primary school site

CONCERNS about the location of a new city centre school prompted calls for it to be moved to another site at last night’s meeting of St Albans council.

Labour group leader, Cllr Martin Leach, called on the council to make strong representations to the county council over the decision to open a new primary school at the former University of Herts Law School on the busy Hatfield Road, St Albans.

He suggested that the former fire station in Harpenden Road was an “ideal location” which could accommodate everything a school needed on site.

He said: “I have put this forward because of concerns expressed to me by mums and dads. County councillors are tied into a vision of the old fire station being sold off. The fact that this is a much easier to access site should be the priority not money.”

Cllr Leach supported his Labour colleague Cllr Eileen Harris who felt converting the Law School into a primary was too problematical with working mums having to drop their children at a school on a main road and play and games facilities being some way away.

But the suggestion was shot down in flames by other councillors including Lib Dem Chris White who described the proposal as showing, “ so much ignorance”.

He went on: “We don’t need one school, two schools but three primary schools. The problem is in the town centre where people can and will walk. Have the people who suggest this ever been to London where many schools are on main roads?”

He said it was not an ideal solution but it was even less ideal to ignore the wishes of city centre parents to have their children educated near to their homes.