Schools : eighth report from the Select Committee on Estimates together with the Minutes of Evidence taken before Sub-Committee E and Appendices, Session 1952-1953.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Estimates
Date:
1953
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Schools : eighth report from the Select Committee on Estimates together with the Minutes of Evidence taken before Sub-Committee E and Appendices, Session 1952-1953. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    58/256 (page 38)
    11 February, 1953.] [Continued. Brigadier Peto. 417. You cannot say that?—I would not argue the case in terms of economies. I do not think there is an argument. I would accept that it is fundamentally a policy point. Chairman. 418. The question of not being able to send children to school is one matter; the question of being overcrowded in school is another?—It is stated quite baldly in the North Riding that within a year they will have to operate a shift system for infants. They will have to use schools twice. There will be so many children for whom they have not the necessary places that they will have to have one lot in the morning and another lot in the afternoon. That is the only way they can accommodate them. 419. They would have to double the teaching staf_?—-No. They would have to put the children on half time. That is the only way they could meet the situation. Mr. James Johnson.|] Without labouring the obvious this was stated by the Chief Education Officer of the London County Council only a few hours ago. Chairman. 420. To proceed with your memorandum, you mention this in the second paragraph on page two. “There is the fact that the housing programme has been substantially expanded during the last year without any increase in the school building programme ”. Can you give us any details about that?— The facts are these. The school building programme was determined in relation to a housing programme estimated at 200,000 houses in a year. If therefore that was a correct calculation that enabled the neces- sary number of schools to be built for those houses. The fact is that 230,000 houses have been built so that there are 30,000 houses for which no school provi- sion has been made. The average will be probably one school child per house at least in the kind of houses we are discussing, so that there are 30,000 school children for whom there are no schools. 421. Are, there areas where you have houses already built and where there are no schools?—Oh, yes. 422. And with the children not attending school?—They are having to be transported very long distances, or they are accommo- dated in hired halls, church rooms or what- ever improvisation can be affected pending the building of schools. Mr. Norman Cole. 423. May I point out to Dr. Alexander that he is assuming the whole of those extra 30,000 houses are in areas divorced from present areas covered by schools?— In London, for example, houses are being built where schools are already in existence They may be overcrowded, but the schools are there?—-I ‘accept . that. “There 1s 22 figure, but it would not necessarily be 30,000. Mr. James Johnson. 424. If the Minister has based her in- crease in school building on the increase in the birth rate that is one matter, but in regard to how many houses that are built it will make no difference to the number of youngsters who have to be admitted. The only point within the wider context is that if you have got your new housing estate ; 2?—With respect, you cannot make that assumption. Let me give you an example. Sheffield are building quite ex- tensively in Derbyshire, right out on the periphery of the city, on the border of the city where they sought an extension of the boundary and did not get it. It is in fact impracticable to move certainly infants from the houses which will be there built to schools which could accommodate them, in other words to bring them back into the centre of Sheffield. It is not practical politics. Therefore a school has got to be built for them on the estate, creating redundant places in the centre of Sheffield where no people are living, so that you get a loss of school places because nobody can use them. I administered Sheffield for six years, and I know it fairly well. I reckoned there would be 40 schools which within 10 years would become _ totally redundant, having been built in the centre of the city where no residential population now exists at all. The children would be at least five miles away. 425. Without anticipating the next memorandum, could they be used for technical colleges?—-Some of them have been so used, but I would add that an infants’ school is not very suitable for a technical college. Mr. Norman Cole. 426. What Dr. Alexander says is that we ought to assume that in 10, 15 or 20 years’ time many of our urban schools, built to-day, will be quite useless?—(Mr. Hirst.) Fortunately many of them will be old ones. Chairman. 427. We understand that there is a very satisfactory liaison between the Ministry and local education authorities and housing authorities so that in fact, when new houses are going up, there should be adequate provision. I should like to know if in fact you have got any glaring example where it is necessary to pay out a lot of money to transport children to school. Can you tell us whether there is a very serious