Plans to sell off the most expensive state-school sports grounds in Britain and build nearly 100 luxury houses and flats on them have provoked a storm of protest from the wealthy neighbours of one of London’s most famous schools.
The roll call of celebrities who have attended Holland Park School — once dubbed the Eton of comprehensives — reads like a Who’s Who from the 1960s and 1970s. Actress Anjelica Huston was a pupil at the school in west London; and politician Tony Benn, historian Lady Antonia Fraser and film-maker Ken Russell all sent their children there.
Now, though, with the run-down buildings in disrepair — the technology block was closed for two years after it was found to be riddled with asbestos, and the roof still leaks — Kensington and Chelsea council wants to tear down the 50-year-old school. It hopes to use money from the sale of the largely tarmac-covered grounds to build a brand new school, due to open in 2009.
Designs by Aedas architects for both a new six-storey school and 97 flats and houses nearby, including 24 homes for key workers, went on display late last year. The site itself could fetch up to £50m.
But 180 objections to the proposals have already been lodged, many from residents of the grand mansion blocks and villas nearby — and their campaign is gathering pace. Complaints include not only the “immorality” of selling school land for upmarket housing, but also the extra traffic that will be generated, as well as the disruption of having to live next to a building site.
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Well-heeled neighbours also worry that without the existing sports hall, swimming pool and open-air playground, the school will become a pressure cooker for its 1,400 pupils, and rowdy behaviour will spill over into nearby streets.
Isaac Ferry, one of singer Bryan Ferry’s four children, lives 200 yards from Holland Park School. Ferry, who works for a music company and whose mother, Lucy, also lives locally, says: “Putting 1,400 children into a glass box is not going to help their social behaviour. There are cars being smashed and jumped on. Shops in Notting Hill do not let children come in more than two at a time. My younger brother has been beaten up.
“If the council rushes into this, the children will be working next to a five-storey block of flats when they could be playing football Having been at boarding school since I was eight, I was always outdoors. If I was angry, I would climb a tree or kick a football.”
Colin Hall, Holland Park’s headmaster, acknowledges that misdemeanours by a few children in local streets and shops have occasionally occurred in the past, but says the school cracks down hard on bad behaviour. His teachers work closely with both the police and shopowners — putting up notices in stores, for instance, to reinforce what is expected of pupils. Behaviour has improved in the last five years, as have the school’s exam results. Last summer 45% of children gained five good GCSEs, just below the national average of 57.1%.
Hall says a new building would offer potential for high academic standards and positive attitudes. But although both the council and the head stress that exercise facilities such as a sports hall and a swimming pool are part of the designs, residents have not been swayed.
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Sally Davies, who lives in Airlie Gardens, behind the school, says she isn’t just a “narrow- thinking Nimby”. The building of yet more costly housing will do nothing to enhance the sense of community in what is already the most densely populated borough in England, she says.
The playground is being exchanged for “high, luxury flats that will be sold to overseas buyers,” says Davies. “They’re gated communities that look like compounds. This is the fourth residential development in our area in a decade.”
The sale of the recreational space will net about £50m, according to Kensington-based Kit Allen of Savills estate agency. He says a two-bed flat on the site, with underground parking, gym and concierge, could sell for up to £1.2m, with penthouses fetching even higher prices.
Allen says: “The developments that have taken place in Kensington in the last two or three years have established that prices can reach about £1,200 per square foot.”
Eva Jiricna, a well-known west London architect, forwarded one letter of complaint she received to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe), the government’s adviser on architecture, which last month called for small tweaks to the design of the school and more far-reaching amendments to the housing.
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But critics say expanses of glass in school buildings are a bad idea. Last week Sir Cyril Taylor, chief adviser on the government programme to build 200 new city academies, said: “Glass is hot in summer, freezing in winter. People can look through it and nasties throw bricks at it.” Cabe, however, has defended the planned new school as a “much better educational environment” than the current one and the architects say that the glass, laminated to make it tougher, will make classrooms lighter.
The council added that Taylor’s comments were irrelevant to Holland Park, which was not a city academy. “Following the public exhibition and continuing discussions with interested parties, the architects are reviewing the designs, primarily for the residential scheme on the southern site,” the council said last week.
The plans are expected to go to the council’s planning committee for approval in the next few weeks. “Any final cost for the project will be known once the designs are completed Only then, once the council has all the figures for the project, will a final decision be made,” it said.
Since 1998, the sales of playing fields and recreation areas have had to be cleared with Whitehall, but although ministers have pledged to boost the amount of sport that children play in schools and to cut obesity, in recent years they have let most deals go through. The Department for Education and Skills approved the sale of the Holland Park grounds two years ago.