Balls Up on New Secondary School in South

The recent "offer" from the Children’s Secretary, Ed Balls, to fund a new secondary school south of the Euston Road as part of the Building Schools for the Future programme in addition to the planned new school in Swiss Cottage comes with two important caveats which campaigners (and the Labour group) are ignoring.

The first is that Mr Balls says we need to prove that there is a requirement for even more places south of the Euston Road than we are currently planning for. The second is the availability and affordability of a site. Mr Balls is not offering to provide or buy us a site and, as we have made clear on numerous occasions, we can not afford to buy a site in central London.

In other words his offer to pay for the school is unlikely to be called in. This is policy-making by press release for the benefit of the area’s sitting MP Frank Dobson, whose seat is under threat from the Lib Dems. The Camden New Journal, which headlined Mr Balls' kind offer last week should be more ruthless in exposing such hogwash which gives false hope to parents.