Its not surprising really and as you might think, I'm not exactly displeased. If people think its hard work campaigning for a new school what do they think it would have been like running one? Given the public investment required, it is surely right that the process should be as demanding and critical as that for any state school.

The Government has on one hand seen sense in that it cannot keep equating petitions with demand and that more indepth research is required ( forgetting sometimes that the local authorities already know all there is to know about statistics). And certainly not petitions where around 25% of the signatories dont seem to live in London yet alone south east London. To provide an expensive new school on these bases is improper and financially unsound. The point made in the article about continually building on school playgrounds is fair, in that its not a sustainable strategy, but it isn't all that local authorities are doing in London and certainly not in Lewisham. There are many schools undergoing masterplanning in order to maximise the use of the existing sites. This is the most sustainable and cost effective way of increasing provision as well as modernisation of existing buildings. New buildings on completely new sites may also be needed but the government is likely to want these out of local authority control. At present and behind the scenes for many people, there are discussions about school privatisation which is forming the main part of the ConDem agenda.

The establishment of any new state school tends to be a long difficult process with a lot of public opposition on many fronts. It isn't straightforward hence it surely makes sense to focus first on maximising the existing educational estate to meet projected needs rather than spend money ( without accountability it would seem) on promoting free schools to be set up by private companies.

A little off topic but I don;t know if people are aware that many private schools operate with charitable status. A hard pressed local authority has had to give financial assistance to one recently. It was told that legally there were no grounds for saying no to a large financial contribution towards capital works. Thats your taxes, and mine, going into private educational sector charging £13k a year!