Don't put track at Sir William Ramsay School, Hazlemere internal report said (From This Is Local London)

Don't put track at Sir William Ramsay School, Hazlemere internal report said

4:44pm Wednesday 30th December 2009

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LAND at Queensway in Hazlemere was ranked the best place to move an athletics track to before council chiefs controversially settled on a nearby school, internal documents show.

An appraisal gave Queensway 63 points compared to Sir William Ramsay School’s 57 – but it was then re-marked and put the Rose Avenue school on 61 and the land on 59.

The Wycombe District Council reports – obtained under The Freedom of Information Act – have infuriated residents opposed to the school scheme.

And they have blasted the authority for blacking out sections.

The track has to move to the school from Wycombe Sports Centre to make way for a coach station and re-located park-and-ride at the centre, WDC says.

It agreed the school option in June – to be progressed with £50,000 of taxpayers’ cash – and in September to use Queensway, by Hazlemere Golf Club, Amersham Road, for allotments (see link, bottom of story).

Manor Road resident Brian Mapletoft, 61, said: “It is disgraceful. It is hardly a robust and ringing ratification of their choice.”

He added: “I think the council thought we were going to let them ride roughshod over us. They were wrong.”

The first report puts Queensway as the top choice as it is “easier to deliver” because, unlike the school, it is owned by the council, meaning it could be built quicker.

The report says: “Queensway impacts on slightly fewer residents and has better access.”

It also said a change of school leadership “can result in a change in attitude” to the plan and there was a “general feasibility” it could take a track. Queensway could take it “with ease”.

Queensway also has the “additional benefit” of banked surroundings to reduce visual impact, it says. Read the first report here.

But the second report says while Sir William Ramsay scored higher, both are “joint preferable options”. Read the second report here.

The reference to impacting on less residents and “better access” – a major concern from residents near the school – is removed from the second report.

Information provided by WDC with the reports says the first was given to a steering group to discuss and the second drawn up after its discussions and “further internal assessments by officers”.

Many sections are blacked out. WDC said this was information not related to the options appraisal and financial information.

Mr Mapletoft, who has organised heated public meetings through Hazlemere Residents’ Association, said this echoed blacked out sections of MPs’ expenses.

He said: “They have not learned the lesson that this is simply not acceptable to the public.”

But council leader Lesley Clarke said releasing commercial information such as building costs could undermine the council’s ability to get the best price.

The “topography is not right” at Queensway, she said, and the road there is “not very clever” and the school would benefit from the track.

She said: “You talk to the residents around the Queensway and they will say the school is better. There is a touch of the NIMBY here.

“We all have worries of what might happen at the bottom of our garden. But we have to bow to the greater need.”

The report said council-owned Grange Farm, near Hazlemere recreation ground, was the only other option but it would affect its present use and require an expensive road.

The following were also ruled out: Highcrest School, Four Ashes, Kingsmead, Marlow gravel pit, Molins former cigarette factory, Slate Meadow in Bourne End and Widmer End.

The plan will go to the council's planning committee. Residents are invited to comment, see link below.

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