More on KentOnline
A school has been granted permission to expand - despite parents being slated for already causing problems by parking on zig-zag lines and blocking driveways.
Members of Maidstone council’s planning committee voted unanimously to allow the Leigh Academies Trust which runs Marden Primary Academy, to add a new single-storey building.
The extension will provide four new classrooms, dining hall, kitchen and staff room, so the school can fully become two-form entry with two classes in every year group.
This would allow the primary to expand from the current 292 pupils to 397. Staffing numbers would also increase from 39 to 45.
There was a general acknowledgment by the council that the school needed to grow from its present “one and a half-form” entry because of all the new homes in the area.
But there was concern at the inevitable pressure the extra pupil numbers would put on Goudhurst Road - the main route through the village - at pick-up and drop-off times.
The school has no off-street parking for parents and there had already been a submission from the trustees of the Marden Memorial Hall saying they were fed up with parents parking in their spaces and blocking out the hall’s users.
The trustees said they were “actively looking at ways to stop unauthorised parking”.
Their view was supported by Marden Pre-School which said: “We use the Memorial Hall and our customers often cannot use the car park to drop-off their children [because of school parking].”
Cllr Claudine Russell (Con) is a ward councilor for Marden. She said: “Let’s be clear. It’s not parking. It’s car abandonment!
“You see the parents dropping their kids off. They park on the yellow zig-zags. They block people’s driveways. They go wherever.
“We will be going from slightly under a one-and-a half form entry to a two-form entry. So that is more pupils and more cars.
“We need to have a realistic view about what that is going to do to the main road through Marden.”
She was supported in her observations by Cllr Tony Harwood (Lib Dem), who described visiting the school and seeing parents “sitting in a pool of fumes”.
He said: “There were a number of 4x4s, sitting with their engines chugging away for half an hour before the school was even due out.”
Cllr Maureen Cleator (Lab) suggested such behaviour was commonplace. She said her house in Hillary Road, Penenden Heath, was opposite a school.
She observed: “The parents sit there with their engines running - and I know for a fact that many of them are not even driving very far to pick their kids up.”
Councillors suggested Leigh Academy Trust should employ a lollipop person to at least discourage parents from parking on the zig-zag lines, and they also said the school should organise a walking bus to cut down on the number of traffic movements.
But planning committee chairman Cllr Paul Wilby (Lib Dem) said while a walking bus was part of the school’s travel plan, it was not legally possible to apply a condition requiring the trust to employ a lollipop person.
Cllr Cleator felt such a measure should not be beyond the scope of the school.
She said: “The Leigh Academy Trust is a very rich, very big multi-academy trust.
“It has got a lot of money. They certainly pay their chief executive a lot.”
There were other aspects of the scheme that councillors were concerned about.
The new-build will involve the loss of three standard trees that are in the way, although the school intends to plant 11 new ones elsewhere.
That worried Cllr Mike Summersgill (Green), also a Marden ward councillor.
He said: “Can we ensure the trust looks after these trees better than they have in the past? Tree loss on the site has been a big concern for many local people.”
There was also criticism that the plans showed the new school building right up against the boundary with its southern neighbours.
Several councillors wondered why it could not be positioned further north. They were advised that it was actually because of a desire to protect an oak tree to the north of the propsed new building.
Re-locating the classroom block could damage its roots, a planning officer advised.
Finally there was concern at the fate of great crested newts known to inhabit the site, when a pond on the land was filled in to cater for the application.
There is no plan to transfer the newts.
Instead the trust will meet its legal mitigation requirements by making a payment of £33,000 to Natural England towards a scheme to create new ponds suitable for newts elsewhere.
The approved plans also allow for the demolition of the school’s existing hall, the creation of 11 new staff parking spaces, and new hard surface play areas.
It will also allow a two-storey block of temporary classrooms, that are already in use, to stay on site until the new building is completed.
The new block will extend onto what is currently the school playing field.
Marden Primary opened at its current site in 1897. It was taken over by the Leigh Academies Trust in 2020.
The expansion will be paid for entirely by Section 106 money and by Community Infrastructure Levies (CIL) garnered by Maidstone council from housing developers that have built homes in the area.
To see more planning applications and other public notices for your area, click here.
Details of the application can be found on the council’s website, under reference 24/503556.
The last publicly available set of accounts for the Leigh Academies Trust (dated August 31, 2023) showed the salary of its chief executive, Simon Beamish, to be between £300,000 and £310,000 a year.
Leigh Academies Trust was approached for a comment.