Super-school inspector sends his report to the Government

THE man who chaired the public inquiry into the Bishop’s Stortford super-school planning appeal has sent his report to the Government.

Some of those taking part in the superschool inquiry visit the proposed site last September

Inspector David Wildsmith formally submitted it on Monday ahead of next Tuesday’s  deadline. Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, is expected to make a decision on it by April 24.

Mr Wildsmith had been working on the document since September, when he heard a month of evidence for and against plans for a joint campus for the Herts & Essex and Bishop’s Stortford high schools on Green Belt land at Thorley.

The two secondaries want to sell off their sites in Warwick Road, Beldams Lane and London Road for housing, and relocate to a site off Whittington Way.

The move would enable local education authority Herts County Council (HCC) to sell its Hadham Road reserve school site for housing.

At the public inquiry, together with developer Countryside Properties and the governors of both schools, HCC tried to convince Mr Wildsmith to recommend that planning authority East Herts District Council’s refusal of planning permission should be overturned.

The area’s four other state secondaries, the town’s civic federation and Thorley Parish Council united with EHDC to argue against the development.