Proposal to expand St Joseph's Catholic Primary School in ...

• Governors
• Neighbouring Local Authorities
• The Dioceses of Chichester, and of Arundel and Brighton
• Unions and Teaching Associations
• Mid Sussex District Council
• Haywards Heath Town Council
• The Local MP
• Local Members of the County Council
• All maintained schools in the Haywards Heath locality, both primary and
secondary
• Early Years providers feeding into the school
• Haywards Heath and Crawley Libraries
1.2 The letter was also available online and a public meeting was held at the
school on 21 st February at 6.30pm.
2.3 At the close of the informal consultation, 10 written responses were received.
The majority of responses were from parents of existing pupils and
Governors at St Joseph’s.
2.4 Six respondents expressly stated that they approved of the proposal, three
were against and one did not specifically answer one way or the other. The
majority of concerns were about the potential disruption from the building
works to the education of existing pupils and the potential loss of a small
school ethos.
2.5 A full analysis of all consultation responses is attached as part of the
Customer Focus Appraisal at Appendix 1.
2.6 A separate consultation will begin in the late spring of 2012 to consider site
and access issues as a precursor to the planning application. This will be
aimed at residents that live close to the proposed site who will be directly
impacted. It is separate from the formal consultation on the principles of
expanding education provision at St Joseph’s.
3. Customer Focus Appraisal
3.1 A Customer Focus Appraisal has been undertaken and is attached as
Appendix 1 to this report.
4. Resource Implications and Value for Money
4.1 The proposals offer value for money and are carefully tailored to the
resources available. The County Council’s capital programme 2012/13
includes an allocation for capital works at St. Joseph`s under the heading
‘Primary and Secondary Basic Need, Other Schemes’ for the construction of 3
classbases, remodelling an existing classroom and creating a learning
resource space. The budget is based on initial feasibility work completed by
architects working with the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and the West
Sussex Capital and Asset Management Team.