Surrey County Council have submitted a planning application (ref SCC2017/0064 & WBC: WA/2017/0696) for a new Junior and Infant School at Glebelands in Cranleigh, and this was discussed at the Cranleigh Parish Council Planning meeting on 24 April 2017.
Having reviewed the application we at Cranleigh Civic Society have concerns regarding child safety.
It appears that with the new school building, the impact of having 3 schools in close proximity in the Glebelands area, and the dangers of hugely increased population of school children travelling to and from school, have not been addressed.
The current Church of England Infant School in Church Lane, has parking available that allows parents to park and walk their Infant school children to the safety of the Infant School premises.
There is no parking provision for parents in the proposed new infant School at Glebelands that will allow parents to ensure their children’s safe arrival at School.
As well as no parking provision for the younger children’s parents/guardians, there is also no extra drop-off area provision for the increased number of High School children.
The impact of the Dunsfold and Cranleigh development proposals could double the current numbers of children of Infant and High School age travelling to and from Glebelands School.
The lack of safety provision in the proposed application will put the new and existing school attendees at unacceptably high risk in many ways in the future while travelling to, from and arriving at school.
We believe that Surrey County Council & Waverley Borough Council both have a duty to properly address this serious issue to ensure child safety and we would be interested to hear how they will carry out their duty of care in ensuring the safe arrival and departure of the huge numbers of children that will attend the Schools at Glebelands in the future.
Yet another case of our elected politicians failing to appreciate the effect of proposals that fall far short of what is essential.
Can you please tell me how the construction will be financed?, Is this another case of build now and pay for the next thirty years.
I throughly agree. When I taught at Glebelands we had staff on duty supervising the end of school departure as it was at this time when the number of students in the neighbourhood was at its highest density. Senior school pupils should be capable of crossing the road, and they were usually sensible except when rushing to catch busses. There were some students who came by car or were met by car, but these were only a small proportion, First and junior school pupils are more likely to be driven to school and particularly the youngest pupils will be escorted right up to the school gates and be collected from the school class rooms. There is no available parking for this.
We now live near Park Mead school and here the parking goes right along Park Drive and Fettes Road, the congestion is impossible. There will be similar problems near the new school and they cannot allow parking on the curve of the road, so children will have to be walked some distance.
The only way to deal with the congestion is to stagger the start and end times, but that would not suit the transport companies or parents with children at more than one school.
Some children coming to Park Mead school come by bicycle, this could be dangerous in the area of the new school. The paths would be over full of students and younger pupils.
What is the proposed total number of young people in the area. My rough calculation is about 1800 when all the houses in planning have been built. That is without the Dunsfold site receiving planning permission. There must be some thought given to child safety.