Hampstead police station ‘will make a very good home for the school’

• YOUR report (Education chief: Old Hampstead police station is ‘not suitable’ for new school, July 11) and comments in your paper regarding Abacus Primary School were well wide of the mark.

The New Journal, like critics of the school, has painted it as some abstract project or theoretical school. It is not a “new” school, but one that has existed since 2013.

From this September it will be fully fledged, with classes from reception to Year 6. Abacus is a state primary school rated “outstanding” by Ofsted, considered by the council’s own reckoning to be one of the top five primary schools in Camden and popular with parents and children alike.

Camden schools are indeed facing a serious problem with falling school rolls caused by a demographic shift that has taken everyone by surprise. This shift is driven by lower than expected birth rates, a shortage of affordable housing for families, and by Brexit, among other factors.

Abacus is not the cause of this problem any more than any other state school in Camden. Similarly Abacus is being blamed for the reduced funding schools are suffering from – blame the Conservative government instead!

Further critics of the school’s planned move into the former police station complain about the prospect of increased traffic and pollution at the school-run time, but the school-run problem in NW3 is overwhelmingly caused by the large number of private schools in the area, which serve a highly privileged section of society from all over north London.

Most children at Abacus will walk, cycle or scoot to school, being local. It would be deeply unjust if this school, which serves local children, was denied its permanent home because of the existence of the private schools.

There is a clear theme among criticisms of the school – blame it for problems that are not of its making and are way beyond its control.

The former police station will make a very good home for the school. Yes, the location is not perfect. A home within the catchment area instead of just outside would have been preferable.

But the area has been scoured exhaustively for years and the police station is the only viable solution in a densely populated area with high levels of conservation controls. It is very rare to find a building that is large enough and that can be adapted as a school.

Whatever one’s views of the free school policy, the fact remains that Abacus is an excellent state primary school serving 150+ Camden children. Those children need a permanent home for their school and that home has to be the former police station.

CLLR TOM SIMON
Liberal Democrat, Belsize ward