Postby Cals_mum_silly » Sun Apr 27, 2014 8:17 pm
this issue cuts two ways. some friends of ours rented BTC in 2007. They sent their kids to Belleville because they qualified. they stayed till 2013. their landlord raised the rent regularly, and eventually they moved just across the common to the lavender hill side. they still attend the school, which is both fair and logical: they walk back and forth every day. this is what i think the criteria should be: stay if you remain within a child’s walking distance.
many families have put down roots and yet been priced out. their kids should not be punished. real estate in this area is subject to a high degree of price discrimination; the same square footage costs twice as much BTC as it does on lavender hill.
but this is to distinguish people of goodwill from the ones who work the system. another couple people we knew rented BTC with the explicitly stated purpose of getting into school. they moved to Earlsfield the same week their child started at Belleville last fall. this was all according to plan. they bought a car for the school run. they wanted more space and more amenities.
i told this story to a local father (without identifying them) who bought on Mallinson, now well outside the zone. he replied: “that’s just immoral.” i agree. it’s dishonest, it’s exploitative, it’s self-serving, and it creates all kinds of problems, one being traffic.
parents who bought locally — exercising prudent financial planning as well as good faith — are compelled to drive across the city for school, which places a burden on families juggling work, logistics, and commutes; while others drive here to drop their kids off - by choice.
this contributes to the biggest problem london’s got besides school places — i.e., traffic -- and they probably pass each other on the road. that’s crazy.
this practice also affects the kids. our Earlsfield friend told us a story: one day her child was informed, “i’m having a birthday party. but you’re not invited.” …i would venture that her classmates have realised how their parents feel about people like hers.
I think people like her parents ought to be compelled to assume the burden of their choices, not enabled to impose it on the rest of us. if you could not conceivably walk to the gates with a child in tow, then, go to your own local school. the council should establish a two-tier catchment zone: a zone of entry, and a zone of exit. they need not be set down along the same geographic coordinates. why is this controversial? it seems simply fair.
today we went to battersea park and passed the lavender hill school on Latchmere road, which was turned into luxury flats. this nearly made me laugh out loud, but in disbelief, not mirth. London needs more houses, but if only this school had remained a school, we would not be facing a places shortage. i can’t fathom why the council allowed that planning application to go through. london needs more schools and houses. crowding out one to make room for the other is shooting yourself in the foot. so is sending people across the city in cars. it puts a huge strain on infrastructure.
i worked in finance. i get the principle of money chasing returns on equity. but i don’t get giving people a glaring incentive to gouge their neighbours. i refer to this neighbourhood as heartbreak hotel. from the schools that no one can get into, to the houses chopped up into flats, to the eight “for sale,” signs on our five-minute walk to the Common, to the demise of Under the Greenwood Tree, closed to make room for estate agents this weekend, something is very wrong here.
we spoke to a lady last week who grew up here and came back, hoping to raise her child; they can’t afford to stay. this is not gentrification. it’s mercenary exploitation. all of us are affected, not just people who live on Belleville Road but can’t — implausibly — send their kids to Belleville School. this is a true story that one mum told me about her own predicament. this pattern is attributable to many factors, but the single most salient is scholastic tourism.
the fact that turnover is so high, is the reason estate agents plague this post code like a bad rash, crowding out unique and beloved places like UTGT, which will probably be a Foxton’s.
the new US embassy at the old power station will probably send prices even higher. US relocation scouts are already here. at some point, no one who needs a good state education will be able to buy here at all. buyers will be rewarded, while a transient renting population will move in and out grimly to get their kids into schools. this will be a two-tier community, not conceivably the intention of those who made the rules or those charged with implementing them.
i’ve heard parents suggest renting flats *one block* closer to schools, while leasing out their own homes. this is lunacy. but it’s a man-made dilemma. i don’t relish apathy so it makes sense to try to figure out how it could be fixed given the will to adapt in an intelligent way.
here’s my proposal: let people who move away but remain in walking distance keep attending. tell everyone else to go away.
