Hove MP to raise concerns about BHASVIC field with minister

Hove MP Mike Weatherley is to tell a government minister that the BHASVIC field is not a suitable site for a new secondary school.

Mr Weatherley will tell Lord Nash, a fellow Conservative and the minister responsible for free schools, that plans to build a school there face considerable local opposition.

He arranged the meeting after the Education Funding Agency suggested the school fields as a permanent home for the King’s School.

The King’s School is a Church of England free school which is due to open in September in temporary premises in High Street, Portslade.

A campaign had already started to prevent Cardinal Newman Catholic School from fencing off the field in Old Shoreham Road, Hove.

A banner reading Hove v Gove (Education Secretary Michael Gove) has been put up on a fence at BHASVIC field

The school’s pupils use the field along with students at the neighbouring Brighton, Hove and Sussex VI Form College (BHASVIC).

Mr Weatherley intends to highlight the lack of school places in Brighton and Hove and outline why the BHASVIC field is unsuitable.

He said that he was disappointed that the Department for Education was forced to intervene in the matter.

He said that this was a result of the Green administration, which runs Brighton and Hove City Council, failing to deal with the school problem.

Mr Weatherley said: “While I am meeting with a minister from the Department for Education to discuss plans for a new school in Hove, it must be remembered that Brighton and Hove City Council face considerable responsibility for the position that we now find ourselves in.

“The Green administration is ideologically opposed to free schools and has wasted a huge amount of time in finding suitable locations within the city.”

In a written answer at the meeting of the full council last Thursday (9 May) Councillor Sue Shanks said: “The council has not as yet conducted its own site searches in relation to the potential need for a new secondary school.”

In her reply, Councillor Shanks, who chairs the council’s Children and Young People Committee, said: “The site has previously been proposed as a possible site for a school development but the proposal was submitted to public inquiry owing to the strength of local feeling and the planning inspector upheld that the site was not suitable for the development of a secondary school.”

Campaigners are trying to give the field stronger protection from any development by applying for village green status.