Have your say

Consultation on the proposal to enlarge the premises at Beechfield School

Why is it proposed to enlarge the premises?
There has been an increase in the number of children aged between 0-5 years who are living in Watford. The County Council has looked carefully at the supply of school places for reception age children, and has concluded that it will be necessary to provide more places at some schools in the town. Without these, there will not be enough school places in September 2010 for all the reception age children in Watford to start school.

There are few schools in Watford that have the site potential to expand. As Beechfield School has some site capacity, it has been decided that the number of places available at the school (the Published Admission Number – PAN) will be increased by 30 for 2010/11. The scale of the population increase is such that the PANs are being also being increased at 2 other schools in Watford for 2010/11. It is likely that these increased places will need to continue for 2011/12, but all admissions numbers for that year will be consulted upon as part of the County Council’s normal annual admissions arrangements.

Beechfield School does not currently have enough classrooms to accommodate these extra children, so it is proposed to add two classrooms to the school for September 2010. The County Council is consulting you on this enlargement and would like to hear your views.


How can you let us know your views?
To let us know your views on this proposal you can do one of the following:

- fill in the online response form by clicking on the link below

- print out the attached downloadable response form and return it to the freepost address at the top of the form.

- emailing your responses to education.planning@hertscc.gov.uk


Your comments must be received by 23 July 2009.


How will the decision be taken?
Once the consultation period ends, a report will be made to the County Council’s Education Panel which meets in September. This panel is made up of key elected members from the three main political parties, and will consider the feedback from the consultation. The Panel will make a recommendation to Cabinet, which is the County Council’s decision-making body. If Cabinet decides to proceed with the proposal, the County Council will publish a statutory notice of its intention. In the four weeks following the publication of the notice, anybody is entitled to comment or object. If there are any objections to the statutory notice, the decision as to whether or not to proceed with the proposal would be made by Cabinet in the light of the objections received. If there are no objections, the Director of Children, Schools & Families would be able to proceed with the proposal.

The following timetable outlines the decision making process. Please note that meetings marked with * will be open to the public.

Public consultation: 11 June to 23 July 2009
Education Panel*: 16 September 2009
Cabinet*: 21 September 2009
Statutory notice: 25 September to 23 October 2009
Decision if no objections to the statutory notice: End of November 2009
Decision if objections to the statutory notice: 21 December 2009