Friday 27th March 2015:
The fundamentally flawed Warminster Draft Neighbourhood Plan, which has been controversial since its conception, thanks to the total secrecy of the Warminster Town Council Working Group who compiled it not letting the public know anything of the proposals it contains, is now being riduculed by Warminster residents en masse.
Within hours of its delayed publication, the Draft Plan met with loud protests over its proposal to push a vehicular highway up through the pedestrianed Avenue, causing a safety risk to pupils and staff of the Avenue Primary School and the Avenue Early Years Education Centre. Likewise, proposals for demolishing Warminster Library, the Warminster Information Centre, Shearwater Lodge Mental Health Clinic and other buildings have also stirred anger among Warminster residents.
Now it seems another suggestion in the Plan ~ the building of an extension to Kingdown School on military land on the north side of Woodcock Road ~ is being dismissed but not by the already vociferous public but in writing by the Ministry Of Defence.
Page 38 of the Draft Plan, 6.5.7. reads:
“Secondary education requirements appear more problematic. Kingdown School has only limited scope to expand on its present site and may not therefore be able to accommodate the projected number of pupils without intervention. With no plans for an additional secondary school in the town based on the perceived growth levels, innovative arrangements may be required. Given that the size of the present school site is the main limiting factor, expansion onto the west end of SHLAA site 2073 (Battlesbury Barracks) may offer a pragmatic solution which retains all secondary education in close proximity.”
Many local residents have for some while been trying to ascertain whether the Ministry Of Defence (MOD) which owns most of the land north of Woodcock Road would consent to giving up its barracks and military training land to allow a school and also more private residential estates to be built. The Battlesbury Barracks site was among the SHLAAs (the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment sites) but it is only in very recent years that millions of pounds have been spent on this site, updating it with modern accommodation for soldiers and military amenity buildings. The question being asked by many local residents was does Warminster Town Council seriously think those new modern military buildings at Battlesbury Barracks could be simply demolished to make way for a secondary school extension ~ and more alarmingly ~ were members of Warminster Town Council seriously in favour of building residential estates all the way to Battlesbury Hill and Cradle Hill, as hinted by a member of the Draft Plan Working Group?
Up until recently, no answers to these questions have been forthcoming from members of Warminster Town Council or the MOD. That is, until today. Warminster resident Al Wright (who has been scrutinising not only the Draft Neighbourhood Plan but also the way Warminster Town Council has been ignoring public opinion and finding in favour of controversial housing developments including Spurt Mead) has, thanks, to his sheer persistence, now received the following statement from the DIO (the MOD’s Defence Infrastructure Organisation:
“To offer some clarity, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) will be making representations to the Warminster Neighbourhood Plan to remove the education designation from Battlesbury Barracks and is further requesting Wiltshire Council to remove this site and others in the MOD ownership from future iterations of the SHLAA.”
So, there we have it. This appears to put paid to the Kingdown School expansion scheme being feasible close to the present school. So where will the school expand to? If the MOD is not submitting its land (to the north and east of Warminster) as SHLAA sites, does that mean a new secondary school will have to be built instead to the west or south of Warminster? If so, where in the west or the south? The Draft Plan does not include any other options for locations for a Kingdown School extension.
Al Wright concludes: “As with all the info presented in the Warminster Draft Neighbourhood Plan, it has not been researched and has no evidential backing; they [the Working Group] didn’t expect anyone to check but they made a mistake by thinking the Kingdown School extension could just go on MOD land without the MOD having a say in the matter.”