Davenies head lays out plans for new teaching block

The school, whose main building on Station Road, Beaconsfield, is a former farmhouse built in 1909, wants to construct a new block to contain a dining hall and library downstairs and a design and technology room and two classrooms upstairs.
It proposes dong this on the site of a hardly used cricket pavilion and a relatively modern staff house which is currently lived in by a member of the grounds staff.
But it has come up against a seemingly irrational planning rule that has resulted in planning permission being refused - and left Mr Watson with a problem.
He said: "In 1999 South Bucks District Council designated 70 per cent of our land as Green Space, which can't be built on. The buildings we want to redevelop is on the edge of our playing fields, and the Green Space boundary goes right through them, even though they were built before the rule was applied."
"We are not seeking to expand the school roll, we need to do this work to make necessary improvements. In 2004 an inspector's report said a school of this size must have a bigger library. Our dining room provides ten thousand match teas each year but the staff are working an an area not much bigger than a domestic kitchen."
He said the existing D&T room is U shaped, and teachers have to rely on CCTV to watch pupils who are out of sight.
Bursar Trevor Wickens said: "It's as if somebody used an old map and just ran round it in green felt tip pen. The line is arbitrary. If it hadn't been for this school, this land would be have become a housing estate years ago."
In the 1962 the school was saved from developers by the committed support of a small group of parents who established and guaranteed the Beaconsfield Educational Trust.
The school will submit amended plans before Christmas. Councillor Alan Walters, who represents Beaconsfield and sits on SBDC's planning committee, said he would be requesting that this time the decision is debated and made by the committee and not by officers with delegate powers.
He said that although it is not possible to remove a Green Space designation, development can be permitted on Green Space where a need can be demonstrated, as happened with the former playing fields behind Butlers Court Primary School.
He said: "I will be supporting the school because from an economic point of view it needs to redevelop what is a minuscule piece of Green Space. The school is an important part of the community."

For more information visit www.davenies.co.uk/Development.html