Council accused of ‘not listening’ to Daventry residents on school proposals

Last week saw full council agree to dispose of land it owns on Eastern Way to the Secretary of State for Education, so that a new 1,050 space secondary school could be built on the site that would be run by the Tove Learning Trust.

It came despite 97 per cent of respondents to a council consultation saying they disagreed with the plans.

And that decision has been criticised by Labour councillor Stephen Dabbs. Writing to the Daventry Express, he states: :”Despite the fact that the consultation had already shown that 219 residents had registered their objections to the plans (and seven had affirmed them), the petition against a school on Eastern Way at change.org had several hundred signatories, and now nears the 1000 mark. All the emails and social media comments are pretty much all against the school.

“To make matters worse, for this session, democratic principles were curtailed by the Chair of the full council , so that any speeches were limited to five minutes. Given the emotive subject matter, and very few other items of contention on the agenda, this was quite unreasonable, although unfortunately entirely within the power of the Chair to so rule.

“Last time I wrote [to the Express], I suggested a suitable epitaph for this council, for when it meets its demise in 2021. It should have a new strap line on its website now: “Still not listening.”

But the chairman of the council, former leader Chris Millar, said that the five minute time limitation was part of the council's constitution.

He added to the Express: "You should be able to make your point in five minutes. It's not to curtail debate but to make sure that people are succinct. I did let one councillor speak for too long (Conservative councillor David James), so I did give everyone an extra minute, including Councillor Dabbs. So he has no cause for complaint."

The decision to go ahead with the scheme, despite its unpopularity in the consultation, was defended by the council’s Conservative leader Richard Auger.

Speaking at the full council meeting he said: “The consultation was not a referendum, with just over 200 responses when there are over 26,000 people living in Daventry. It’s simply a way of scrutinising and getting opinion so that we can be informed when we discuss the issue. It did exactly that and I’m grateful to those who contributed.”

Later on in the debate, shortly before the issue was voted on, he added: “There’s a passion here to do the best four children, whatever side of the argument you are on. I don’t think sitting on our hands is acceptable. We need to make a choice and allow this to go through, and then all the checks and balances will happen.

“Whether the school gets built or not is certainly not a foregone conclusion, but to do nothing is unacceptable. We need to plan for the future. It might not be the best place in the end, but let’s test it.”