Havering cabinet: Most controversial school expansion delayed

Parents who signed petitions to prevent the more controversial expansion of a school were offered some respite after the decision was delayed by the cabinet last night.

Petitions to prevent the expansion of the Parsonage Farm Primary School, in Farm Road, Rainham, reached 425 signatures.

Cabinet members at their first Town Hall meeting since the election listened to parents’ concerns and will review the situation before making the announcement in September.

Mothers sat in the public gallery eagerly awaiting the decision but did not seem ecstatic on hearing it will be delayed.

The decision over expansions of Scotts Primary School, in Bonington Road, Hornchurch, and the RJ Mitchell Primary School, in Tangmere Crescent, Hornchurch, will also be delayed until September cabinet meeting.

Chief education officer Joy Hollister warned that expansion is, in the end, inevitable.

“In the future we will have to expand [the] schools, so it’s a question of which school do we expand first,” she said.

The remaining schools in the expansion plan will increase in admission numbers as planned.

For a full report of the meeting, see Friday’s Recorder.