§ MR. RICHARDasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether the Education Department have refused their sanction to the Cardiff School Board to acquire sites for the erection of schools in three districts of that town, which were scheduled by the Department as being the districts in which the educational deficiency was greatest, and after the Inspector of the Department, the Surveyor of the Department, and the Department itself had fully approved of the sites; and, if so, what were the reasons for that refusal?
§ VISCOUNT SANDONSir, the Cardiff School Board asked the consent of the Department to the compulsory acquisition of the three sites for schools referred to, in addition to another which has been passed. The first of these sites had been given by Lord Bute for a Children's Home and Hospital, and the Department refused their consent to the compulsory acquisition of this site for a board school. The second included a site which had been given for a church. In this case also the Department did not feel justified in giving their consent, and I consider that the refusal is justifiable; but negotiations are now going on, at the instance of the Department, between the school board and the clergyman who had the gift of this site, which we have every reason to believe will terminate in the acquisition by the school board of a part of the site suitable for the school board purposes, at the same time reserving the amount of site required for the church for which it was originally given. As to the third site, we are informed that there are difficulties now going on between the school board and Lord Bute's representatives; but we have a good hope that an arrangement will shortly be made between the parties. The hon. Member 704 asks to be informed of the reasons which led to the course pursued by the Department in this matter. We refused our consent to the first two sites in their original form, as we felt that, considering the great difficulty which often exists in crowded towns in acquiring sites for such public purposes as hospitals, churches, chapels, children's homes, &c., it was not right, inasmuch as the school board has the choice of any site in the town by means of their powers of compulsory purchase, to allow them by the exercise of these powers to take possession of the hardly-acquired sites of institutions of public interest and utility, unless there was some absolute necessity for the selection of such sites.