 Council Give A Generic Update On The Status Of The Woodlands Meed College Building Dispute
28th June 2017
A verbal update was given on the status of Woodlands Meed SEN School during a meeting of the Central and South Mid Sussex County Local Committee on Tuesday evening.
Cllr Anne Jones was the one to give the update - although her delivery was rather poor. It wasn't clear which parts were her own account of the situation and which were from a report supplied to the committee members by Deborah Myers, Director for Education and Skills at the county council - who was unable to attend the meeting herself.
The following is a transcript of what was said by Cllr Jones:
Some of you may know that Woodlands Meed is a school for pupils with special needs in Burgess Hill, and very quickly, there was an issue for the children 14-19 and the premises they have needs to have some investment to actually meet the needs of those children, so the county council is committed, and I have a report from Deborah Myers -who is the director for education - which she has quickly sent along because she couldn’t make this evening’s meeting.
And they are committed to making sure that all the children and young people at Woodlands Meed School are given the opportunity to access the best education available in school buildings which meet their needs.
They have commissioned an independent building assessment of the site because there are certain facilities that need to be developed. They have perceived that , is it predicted that they have a future life expectancy between 7-15 years and obviously the governors of Woodlands Meed are really working hard to see that we can get the investment in this school that is desperately needed.
It is absolutely vital that they have three double classrooms and a new hygiene room ready of occupation. This has been halted whilst they see what else they need. There's no point in doing some investment that actually isn't going to be effective. There is a task and finish group that is looking at this with officers at the county council and that work will continue.
The committee of your local West Sussex County Councillors
No progress made - At least not in public
Those who've been following the Woodlands Meed situation was realise that this update from WSCC is no further along than the big debaten and vote taken at County Hall in Chichester last March. This was where the Conservative Councillors voted NOT to back the school's call for a new building - WSCC want to do the bare minimum of works required and run, reneging on the arrangement when the idea for the whole school site was first conceived.
The wait goes on to see how and when the college site stand-off will be resolved
Spread the word, West Sussex County Council have given essentially a 'no news' update on Woodlands Meed!
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