Consultation period extended over new school in Diggle

p3 school buses debatePROTESTS BY a Parish Councillor and villagers have led to an extension of a consultation period on Saddleworth’s new £19 million secondary school.

Cllr Keith Lucas, who is a Save Diggle Action Group committee member, had written an open letter to Oldham Council leader Jim McMahon and officers, builders Interserve and the Education Funding Agency over concerns about the documents submitted with the planning application for a school in Diggle.

The letter, which was signed by more than 100 locals, urged the council to invalidate the application until all documents are available, in full, for public scrutiny.

It says: “A high proportion of the documentation is unreadable and images and graphs supporting statistical data indecipherable because of the poor quality of the transfers.

“It was over a week before the Scoping Opinions for the Environmental Impact Assessment were published, despite repeated assurances by planning officers these would be published before the application became live.

“It now appears the period for public consultation has begun, with a cut-off date of August 27.

“But it seems the public are expected to form a view on the application over an extended period as and when the relevant documents are made available.

“The urgent question is what happens to the public statutory right of 21 days consultation when the date has been set for the public consultation to start without the information available for the public to make a rational and considered opinion?”

But in response Councillor Dave Hibbert, Cabinet Member for Housing, Planning and Transport, said: “An issue with viewing graphs in a couple of supporting documents for the Saddleworth School planning application has been highlighted.

“We thank residents for alerting us to this and – although this only affected a small part of the wider planning application – we’re happy to therefore extend the consultation period until September 4.

“We also understand some people may wish to see a hard (paper) copy for themselves.

“These can be viewed at Oldham Council’s planning office but we’re also making another copy available for public viewing now at Saddleworth Parish Council offices.

“This will be available between 9am and 4.30pm from Monday to Friday, and at other times when the offices are open for meetings.

“This can be done by prior arrangement only, so please call 01457 876665 first, from Friday, August 14 onwards.”

 

2 Replies to “Consultation period extended over new school in Diggle”

  1. So the kids of Saddleworth school have to put up with the wreck of a school they have at the moment and their chances of a new school fade just to keep SDAG happy. My daughter could have had an education in a decent building rather than one that doesn’t even meet fire standards. I suppose it’ll be OK when 1200 kids no longer support our local communities as they get shipped out to the schools/academies in Oldham with spare places and the current school closes being turned in to houses anyway and the Diggle mill site becomes a low-cost housing estate. At least Dobcross won’t have a problem with traffic though.

  2. Look SDAG, you are just delaying the inevitable. You’ve spent 4k on a transport consultant and there was no public document from that … What a waste of money. 4k could have supported one of our struggling local services. You’ve delayed the school what for? The demolition of Shaws is going ahead, the land is sold. Why can’t you do some good and actually work with the contractor to do a good job rather than delaying it.

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