We are petitioning local government because we believe that proposals for new schools within the Rokeby estate in South Rugby should not go ahead.

Three schools, including a new secondary school, are to be built next to Rokeby Primary School in South Rugby, turning a 200 pupil school into a site for over eight times as many children. This is poorly thought out and completely unsustainable. The proposals include a large secondary school and a special needs school, and remove the large, public access, field at the corner of Long Furlong and Anderson Avenue.

 Issues with traffic flow both around the schools, and on and off the estate, have been ignored. The Free Secondary School is proposed to go on a field with no access and little space, on a narrow residential street. Primary school traffic has resulted in accidents caused by unsafe parking and impatient drivers. Police Community Support Officers have frequently been needed to prevent traffic getting unmanageable. A housing estate on neighbouring fields was recently rejected due to traffic flow issues spreading as far as Unchurch and the gyratory system.

Rokeby Primary School is being forced to double their intake, whilst being forcibly moved to a smaller site. They will lose their site to a special school, who will hugely alter a building renovated at the cost of £750,000 only a few years ago. The children will lose the play area, farm animals, sensory garden and forest school that they have raised funds for and cared for.

Rugby Free Secondary School are planning to build a 1200 pupil school on a site next to the primary school, exposing five years olds to the behaviour of sixteen year olds. This has been done without local consultation, without traffic investigation, and without notice to existing school staff, school governors, local residents or local councillors. 

To accommodate a new year seven intake this September, the old infant school is being demolished, to be replaced by temporary accommodation in only eight months. There is local concern about the safe removal of a significant amount of asbestos on site, which is on a residential street next to an active primary school and may well harm local residents and children.

The building project is being presented as a fait accompli, suggesting that there is no opportunity for residents or parents to put their views across or object to plans. The plans are ill thought through, and untenable for the site proposed. 

Please add your name as a sign of indignant objection, in an aim to provide more sustainable schooling not only for the affected area, but for the whole of the town.