Cleevelands and Homelands development - Bishops Cleeve & Gotherington

“Seems like lorddust (why?) knows a lot more about this than BishopsCleeve, whose silence has been indicative of someone who knows they've been rumbled!”

“How much tax payer's money has Tewkesbury Borough Council LOST in legal fees? They are not going to win this appeal. Same old council! Pull your finger out Tewkesbury Borough...know to pick the battles that you are going to win!”

“Let's wait until Homelands 1 is finished and occupied before we assess the traffic effect on Gotherington Lane.”

“"Well Grangefield school, owns a lot of field space and this school is possible for expansion but there are no plans to expand this school."

And where did that information come from? As far as I know no decisions have been made on who will get any money from the development and no school "owns" land. The local authority "own" the land if the LA choses to expand then the school has no say in the matter.

As it is, none of the local schools have official plans or planning applications in place to expand. FACT. I am sure they all have hypothetical plans and ideas of how they would like to expand given the opportunity. And yes Grangefield is on a big site, and as someone who is "on the pulse" (hardly) with local planning, I am sure you must know why.

"Woodmancote primary school maybe getting a new building and bishops cleeve primary school is due to be renovated and with a average of 2 - 3 class"s per year it is also due to be likely extended"

Woodmancote are already being expanded and the primary already put themselves out as a 2/3 form entry school just to get the numbers in. Also where would the primary expand to? Their site is already pretty full and if you become 4 form entry that would involve a 25% increase in floorspace.

"Grangefield, Woodmancote and Gotherington are not likely to get involved unless they are already planning for an extension to their schools. These 3 schools are not academies."

Well you have already stated as fact the Grangefield are not planning to expand and that Woodmancote maybe (sic) expanding. Schools do not need to be academies to receive Section 106 funding. What will happen with Cleeve School is continuation of fair banding and a contraction of the catchment area until it becomes a local school only. Gotherington are probably very happy doing their own thing, after all their results outstrip most local schools anyway.

Your assertion that "there isn't any traffic now that homelands 1 is almost finished." is complete nonsense. I drove down Gotherington lane last week and the reason that there is no traffic is that the building is ongoing and few houses have been sold. Same as Sunset View, or whatever it is called. I visited someone there last week and 80% of the houses are unoccupied so there isn't going to be any traffic is there?

Reading your comments about the whole development, I would suggest you are A) happy for the proposed work to go ahead and B) somehow involved with the primary school as you seem happy to rubbish any suggestion of expansion at any other existing schools and C) not as well versed in the local planning/development situation as you would like readers to believe.”

“Well Grangefield school, owns a lot of field space and this school is possible for expansion but there are no plans to expand this school. The secondary school has recently been given 14 million to build a new department which it has already built, and there are plans to rebuild the English department and expand the school. An expected 180 students will join the secondary school. Woodmancote primary school maybe getting a new building and bishops cleeve primary school is due to be renovated and with a average of 2 - 3 class"s per year it is also due to be likely extended. Another nursery is likely to be built in the new development. Bishops cleeve primary and cleeve school (secondary school) are both academies but they will both be involved with the developers while Grangefield, Woodmancote and Gotherington are not likely to get involved unless they are already planning for an extension to their schools. These 3 schools are not academies.”

“Bishops Cleeve, when you say plans are being made to expand existing schools, can we have some elabouration on this? I dont know offhand if any of the proposed schools are academies but wouldnt this change the nature of what could be allowed?”

“Do I smell Astroturf...?”

“As others have pointed out, the only commitments made to the community by developers are commercial in nature with nothing said about the expanded needs for Doctors surgeries and schools. I guess its fine if you want 3rd world ratios of persons to doctor or children to teachers!

Official Government policy: Localism,
Unofficial Government policy: Screw Localism”

“Extending? It will likely double the size of the school and doctor's list!”

“I can honestly say this : they are planning a school but this is unlikely to be built as plans are being made to extend the ones already in use.

The doctors surgery is also under review and may be built to serve the community's of Prestbury and Cleeve. Don't ask me how this ends up as Prestbury's surgery when it is on the far side of Bishops Cleeve. It's the councils decisions and some of the decisions they make are absolutely 'nutty'!”