Durham County Council has submitted a proposal to demolish the Sunnydale School campus, bringing the long running and often bitter saga of the school’s fate to a final, permanent conclusion.
The plan, which can be viewed on the local authority’s planning portal and has been posted at entrances to the site, is proposing that, barring objections, the work will be undertaken between April and October of next year.
Responding to the news, Shildon Town Council’s Deputy Leader, Cllr David Reynolds said: “Unfortunately the decision to demolish the Sunnydale Campus comes as no surprise given the decision announced earlier this year to permanently close the campus.
“After that point the demolition, and probable sale of the land, felt inevitable. The bitterest disappointment to the Town Council was the decision made between Greenfield Community College and the County Council to cease provision of secondary education in Shildon altogether by closing the campus rather than investing in it.
“We conducted our own consultation exclusively with Shildon parents and residents prior to that decision, which was submitted to the County’s own statutory consultation.
“It was clear at the time that parents felt that if the facilities at Shildon were improved then their overwhelming preference was that their children had the opportunity to be educated together in the town where they live and not be sent in different directions to schools where they felt less of a belonging.
“Although the county and school’s own consultation contradicted this, there was anecdotal evidence that children completing the consultation survey on site at the school had been ‘primed’ in advance on the advantages to Greenfield of the proposal to close Shildon.
“After the closure decision had been announced the Town Council, which admittedly does not have statutory responsibility for the provision of secondary education, did engage informally with alternative secondary education providers.
“But it seems that the damage done through the gradual running down of secondary education provision here had made alternative provision unviable and those organisations felt they would not be able to attract the necessary investment.”
An anomaly spotted by Town Councillors in the latest documentation, appears to suggest that the demolition order was authored in 2014, seven years before the school’s closure, but Durham County
Council say this was not the case.
Stephen Reed, Durham County Council’s planning development manager, said: “The demolition report has been submitted on a standard template, devised in 2014 [hence the date on the document] but adapted for the proposed scheme.
“Once a demolition contractor has been appointed for Sunnydale, a further, more detailed risk assessment and method statement are required to be submitted for approval.”
Cllr Reynolds added: “In discussions in the build up to the decision about the school site, our Councillors did express that the move, should it go ahead, felt as though it was part of a ‘managed decline’ of Shildon.
“The County Council’s representatives vehemently denied this, however Shildon Town Council noted later in the year that Shildon has also been removed, in documents and communications from Durham County Council, from the list of the County’s major towns – removing a status which Shildon previously enjoyed.”
Shildon & District's local community newspaper.
