HC Deb 03 April 1958 vol 585 cc1427-31

2.4 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Hunter (Feltham)

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise on the Adjournment a matter which is of importance to a number of my constituents. I refer to the need for a primary school on the Sparrow Farm Estate, Feltham. The estate is of recent construction and development. Designed by the Feltham Urban District Council, it has an area of over 47 acres and contains 515 houses. It is an estate of which we in Feltham are very proud and it is nicely laid out with lawns for children. Visitors from abroad have been shown this housing estate as an outstanding example of our post-war housing construction.

When the estate was planned, provision was made for a primary school. As a result, parents moving into these new surroundings naturally expected such a school. The Sparrow Farm Residents Association approached the Feltham Urban District Council, which fully supports the case for a primary school for the estate, and communicated also with the Middlesex County Council and with myself as the Member of Parliament.

I have been in communication with the Middlesex County Council, with whom I raised the question of a school for this estate. In a reply, dated 6th January, the Clerk of the Middlesex Council Council states: With reference to my letter of 23rd December, I have now obtained a full report from the Chief Education Officer. The Education Development Plan includes a proposal for the establishment of a new primary school on land reserved for this purpose and adjoining the Sparrow Farm housing estate. This new school would, to a large extent, be a replacement of unsatisfactory accommodation at the Hanworth Road and Cardinal Road schools, which would then be reconstructed for smaller numbers. The Divisional Executive would like to see the new school built but have been prevented in putting forward the scheme because of the policy of the Minister of Education in relation to new school buildings. It can, therefore, be seen that the Feltham Council and the Middlesex County Council are favourably disposed towards the provision of a primary school for this estate. It can reasonably be argued that it is the ban on new school buildings imposed by the Minister of Education which is preventing the provision of the school.

On 31st October, 1957, 378 boys and 379 girls under the age of 16, making a total of 757 children, were living on the estate. The need for the school is therefore clearly shown.

I wrote to the Minister of Education appeailng for a primary school for the estate and the reply, dated 10th March, states that, in addition to the Cardinal Road and Hanworth Road schools, which the Middlesex County Council described as unsatisfactory accommodation, there was sufficient vacant accommodation in neighbouring schools, for instance, Oriel, Southville and probably, in the near future, Fairholme to provide accommodation for children from the Sparrow Farm estate.

I know my constituency very well. Even at a conservative estimate, Oriel school is at least 40 minutes' walk from the estate. The estate is near the Hounslow border of my constituency, while Hanworth is on the Twickenham border. In addition, to attend the Oriel school, the children would have to use extremely dangerous roads which carry heavy traffic. This would be a source of worry to their parents. The journey by bus would involve a change of bus en route.

Oriel School, as, no doubt, the Parliamentary Secretary is aware, bears a famous name in education. It is named after the founder of Oriel College, Oxford, who at one time was the Vicar of Hanworth. One recognises, therefore, the close relationship between Oriel College, Oxford, and the Oriel School at Hanworth. Though I am quite certain that that gentleman was keen on education, I am sure that if he were alive today he would never agree that children should walk all that distance, especially in view of the heavy motor traffic and the dangerous roads which they would have to cross. The Fairholme and Southville Schools are also a considerable distance from the estate and the bus service is very limited. Children going to those schools would have a very long walk indeed. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to study, and to ask his officials to study, a map to see that my statements about the very long journeys and the dangerous roads are fully supported.

I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to ask his right hon. Friend to reconsider this matter. The school was allowed for in plans for the estate. Feltham Council and Middlesex County Council want it, and it would bring joy and pleasure to many of my constituents there. I know the Parliamentary Secretary is keen on education. I think he will agree with me when I say that our future lies with our children. Let them not suffer because of the credit squeeze or the restrictions on local government and education expenditure. I trust that the Parliamentary Secretary will give me hope that when the plans for the primary school are put forward the Minister will grant his permission and will not impose a permanent ban on the new school for that estate.

2.11 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Sir Edward Boyle)

It is some time since I last had the pleasure, as it always is, to reply to a speech by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) in this House. I should like to thank him for the very lucid and moderate way in which he has put his case. I always wish on these occasions when we debate a subject of this kind that, for the benefit of the people in the House who do not know the area under discussion, a large-scale electronic map would suddenly appear so that all could follow the details of the discussion.

I know that the hon. Member approached my right hon. Friend, and also the former Minister, the present President of the Board of Trade, on this case and I know of the very close interest he has taken in it over a long period of time. I hope that the hon. Member will realise that, although I cannot give him today the answer he would like to hear, none the less the Ministry is very fully aware of the problems with which he is concerned.

As the House knows, for I have had to repeat this on many occasions from this Box, we have to concentrate the school-building programme on providing new school places for children who would otherwise be out of school altogether. I certainly hope, as does the hon. Member, that the day may not be infinitely distant when we can allow local authorities to build all the new schools they would like, but no Government have found that possible yet since the war. As I think the hon. Member knows, it is a remarkable thing that, even despite the restrictions on local authority investment and despite the other restrictions on capital investment today, the total size of the investment programme in the public sector of the economy is, in real terms, now 36 per cent. higher than it was in 1951. So it is a very real problem which has faced all Governments since the war.

1 think the House would like me briefly to state what are the relevant facts in this case. The Sparrow Farm Estate, to which the hon. Member referred, is an estate of some 552 houses with a primary school population of 269 pupils. There is no school on the estate, and the majority of the pupils attend the Cardinal Road Infants School and the Cardinal Road Junior School, which is known as the Hanworth Road Junior School.

I should say right away that, although the schools are not on the estate itself, no child has to walk more than one mile to school each day. This distance of one mile is a distance which my right hon. Friend would certainly not consider in itself as being unreasonable. In rural districts there are a great many children who have to walk to school a good deal farther than that each day.

I know that those schools are overcrowded and it is a fact that no further pupils can be admitted from the estate, but I also know that there is vacant accommodation in Oriel, Fairholme and Southville Schools. As from next term it will be necessary to transport pupils from the estate to Fairholme School, but this may not be a permanent arrangement as the age groups on the estate have changed, and there has been a decline from 127 children born in the year 1952–53 to only 65 children born in the year 1956–57.

I must go into a little further detail. Fairholme School is approximately two and a half miles from the estate and Oriel School about two miles distant. The vacant accommodation at Southville is only one and a half miles from the estate. It will be wanted from next September for secondary school pupils and, therefore, cannot be taken into account when dealing with the primary school pupils from the estate.

I know that the hon. Gentleman is opposed to the idea that children should have to travel to school in this way, and certainly in an ideal world this is not an arrangement which any of us would wish to see; but this is a necessary and often repeated consequence of the enormous problems which face local education authorities all over the country whilst the bulge in the school population is passing through the primary school and secondary school age groups.

I should here like to pay a tribute to the Middlesex Education Authority for the way it has solved its very difficult problems in so many parts of the county. Incidentally, there are a large number of secondary modern schools which are gaining very much in prestige and esteem in a way most creditable to the county. The county authority intends eventually to replace the Cardinal Road School. It will not do this on the present site, but it will provide new premises on the estate itself.

Certainly everybody agrees that the buildings are old and unsatisfactory, but once again I must repeat what I have already said today, that I am afraid it will be a very long time before we can replace all unsatisfactory buildings. My right hon. Friend has to allocate all of his resources to the provision of places for children who otherwise would not be able to go to school at all. I realise that this is a decision which cannot be welcome to the hon. Gentleman or his constituents, but I can assure him that as soon as it becomes possible to replace old and unsatisfactory schools we shall give full consideration to the need for a new school on the Sparrow Farm Estate.

The only thing I would add is that, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman realises, when that time comes, when we can start to replace old and unsatisfactory schools, there will be a very considerable number of authorities who will feel they have a right to a high place in the queue, and I rather think when that time does come, and we have the problem of establishing the right criteria, I shall be answering considerably more Adjournment debates.