MasterPlan - from bad to much much worse

[spiderlegs]

More on the Almoners' glorious MasterPlan. A couple of well-placed sources have recently contacted the Ridley Society about its latest disastrous lurches.
As predicted by the Ridley Society in 1999, the over ambitious project now seems in total tatters. Rumour has it that all further building projects have been abandoned, other than the completion of the remaining boarding houses to meet statutory requirements. (In effect creating a two tier system. The first eight boarding houses they lavished £16.9 million refurbishing and the last eight they’re now knocking out for £5 million.)
All other parts of the ill-conceived scheme (new classrooms, arts quadrangle, new d&t school) have been shelved.
Furthermore, to raise the £20 - £25 million needed for ‘repair and maintenance work’ on the rest of the estate the Almoners are now planning to flog off some more property in London.
Let’s hope they get a better price for it than they did for 5-13 Queen Anne’s Gate. Those were the five Grade One listed Queen Anne town houses they let go for £2.9 million in 1998, only for the properties to be sold on later the same year for £7.5 million. Ooops.)
By the way, having quietly moved to Total Return as a method of accounting, the Almoners are perfectly entitled to sell school property in the City.
With Horsham District Council currently discussing the expansion of housing near Broadbridge Heath, the Ridley Society predicts that it’s only a matter of time before the Almoners, despite a recent promise not to do so, resurrect plans to sell off school land to the west of the railway line to a property developer.
(After all, they are totally strapped for cash - despite press-ganging pupils into calling Old Blues to beg for money. Hmmm, I wonder why so many Old Blues have doubts over their money being well spent?)
On a final note, the Charities Commission declined to open a section 8 enquiry into whether the contract to build the sports centre was rigged back in 1988. However the commission’s officer based her decision partly on the mistaken impression that a vote of no confidence on its construction had been heavily defeated at a Court of Governer’s meeting at the time. The contract being rigged was never even discussed at a Governer’s meeting and the Ridley Society was most intrigued as to how the officer could have come to believe such a vote took place.
Therefore the Ridley Society is pressing on with an appeal in the belief that, if an enquiry is opened up, it will also shed some revealing light on how building contracts were awarded for the absurd MasterPlan and, indeed, how contracts may be awarded for any future building work resulting from the Almoners selling off chunks of school land in their desperate attempts to find money.
More to follow.
http://www.ridleysociety.com

[Great Plum]

They should have never renovated the houses in the over the top way in the first place imho...

[J.R.]

Can't help but think but this all reminds me of the De-Nationalisation of our once great Rail system.

Look at the way the N.H.S. is going !

Someone has a bright idea, and generally, that person is the ONLY person to profit.

(Who muttered Communist ? Come on - Own up !!)

[J.R.]

They should have never renovated the houses in the over the top way in the first place imho...

I thought The Masterplan was a brilliant and ambitious project; the boarding houses really did need renovating. Would your opinion be different if they actually had the money to finish it or do you think it would be a waste of money whatever?

I've been inside a couple of the renovated houses and have to admit they are 110 % better than when I was at Horsham.

HOWEVER...................

Cutting ones cloth springs to mind !

[Great Plum]

They should have never renovated the houses in the over the top way in the first place imho...

I thought The Masterplan was a brilliant and ambitious project; the boarding houses really did need renovating. Would your opinion be different if they actually had the money to finish it or do you think it would be a waste of money whatever?

They did need renovating - but the way they did it was over the top imho - I have thought that ever since it started...

[spiderlegs]

'a brilliant and ambitious project'

Surely anyone can come up with the plans for a brilliant and ambitious project. (The Millennium Dome could have been classed as such.)
But when the people in charge then try and enact their plan on ridiculously optimistic financial projections of future economic growth, don't allow for the fact initial costs on any building project tend to spiral upwards and ignore feedback from the people actually at the school who questioned the necessity of much of the thing in the first place, you have to ask yourself was the plan formulated for the benefit of the school or for the vain-glorious needs of those holding the purse strings.

My money is on the latter...

[Richard Ruck]

So, is the money raised through the proposed property sales earmarked solely for general repair and maintenance (e.g. preventing the Water Tower from falling down), and not for the upgrading of the remaining boarding houses?

Barring some sudden windfall, it sounds as if there will indeed be two classes of house for the foreseeable future. A shame.....

[spiderlegs]

My understanding is that the Clerk has indicated the remaining boarding houses will be finished off at a cost of £5 million.
This will create a two tier system - and for those around at the school when the first boarding houses were revamped, you may remember the bad feeling it caused among pupils in the 'bog standard' houses. (Plus creating concern for prospective parents over which boarding house their child would end up in.)
Of course the issue raises another interesting point. If they can upgrade eight boarding houses to statutory requirements for a 'mere' £5 million, why did the first eight cost £16.9 million?
Where exactly did all this extra money go? The Almoners' report on this makes no attempt to disaggregate figures, and the Clerk refuses to comment - so your guess is as good as mine.

[englishangel]

As you know I have to put in my 2 penn'orth. (I even had a letter in yesterday's {20th Oct} Independent.

!7 years ago I was the commissioning manager for a new Maternity Unit in West London. 34 beds, SCBU, antenatal clinic, 12 room deliverysuite, 'special' delivery room/theatre 2 and theatre 1.

I cannot remember the exact budget for the building but it was around £5million.

I started with a budget of £500,000 for fixtures and fittings (the model hospital in Stevenage had £750,000) which was cut back to £300,000 incrementally as money was needed elsewhere. Hardly anything could be moved from the old hospital as it had been under threat of closure for 10 years so had very little capital funding.

We finished under budget, around £287,000 if memory serves.

I know this was a while back, but this was high-tech stuff.

How can it cost £2.1 milllion for what is basically a house, albeit a big one?

Incidentally I was/am a midwife, not a business person.

[J.R.]

As you know I have to put in my 2 penn'orth. (I even had a letter in yesterday's {20th Oct} Independent.

!7 years ago I was the commissioning manager for a new Maternity Unit in West London. 34 beds, SCBU, antenatal clinic, 12 room deliverysuite, 'special' delivery room/theatre 2 and theatre 1.

I cannot remember the exact budget for the building but it was around £5million.

I started with a budget of £500,000 for fixtures and fittings (the model hospital in Stevenage had £750,000) which was cut back to £300,000 incrementally as money was needed elsewhere. Hardly anything could be moved from the old hospital as it had been under threat of closure for 10 years so had very little capital funding.

We finished under budget, around £287,000 if memory serves.

I know this was a while back, but this was high-tech stuff.

How can it cost £2.1 milllion for what is basically a house, albeit a big one?

Incidentally I was/am a midwife, not a business person.

Sounds like you could get yourself a very worth-while job in Horsham englishangel !

[englishangel]

I am open to offers

[spiderlegs]

I didn't know you (Englishangel) had put in your tuppence worth - under which strand / entry / topic?
(Sorry, I haven't visited the site for a while.)
What was the Independent letter about too?

[Richard Ruck]

How can it cost £2.1 milllion for what is basically a house, albeit a big one?

That would sure buy a lot of new partitions and comfy chairs......

Sounds like it would have been a lot cheaper to knock them down and start again.

[englishangel]

I put my thoughts in on all sorts of things.

If you click on my profile it tells you where I am most active.

The Rock School forums (fora?) are favourites.

The Independent letter was about this 'idea' of Ruth Kelly's to bus children from poor areas to good schools.

I am doing a course by distance learning meaning I spend a lot of time at home/on the Internet.

I am turning into Mrs Angry of Amersham. My second published letter in a national daily in 2 months, although the other one was on a more flippant topic.

I will have to stop it as I am beginning to embarrass my children.


Copy of letter sent to The Independent.

Sir:

Ruth Kelly's idea for bussing children from poor areas to middle class enclaves is already underway here in Buckinghamshire.

It is called the selective system.

Children, from whatever background, are allocated to the school which best fits their academic needs on the basis of the 11 plus exam.

This results in Buckinghamshire LEA having overall GCSE (A*-C) results 10% higher than the national average, and the Upper School which my children attend (the old secondary modern) has results less than 1% lower than the national average. This is on 2004 figures, I believe the 2005 figures are even better.

Time and again the parents of Buckinghamshire have been asked if we want to get rid of the selective system, and time and again we have refused.

We know what works.

Yours faithfully

Mary Faulkner
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Happy]

Nice one. They have the same system in Reading too, and Kendrick School (state girls grammar selective)gets some of the best results in the UK, although the alternatives are pretty awful if you don't make it.

Sorry - a bit off topic.