Langdon Hills: Parents will go to European Court

Campaign leader Derrick Fellowes maintains the failure to build a new school will mean Essex education authority is failing to provide adequate schooling in Langdon Hills.

The parents plan to compile figures which they say will prove there is a need for the school and if these are ignored they will go to the European court.

Parents this week won their first victory in the fight to get a new school built when education officers finally agreed to present to councillors the case for the Campaign for a Local Area Secondary School.

The decision followed a stormy public meeting.

Dozens of parents will travel to County Hall in Chelmsford on Monday for a crunch council meeting to discuss the issue.

Many have refused to send their children to James Hornsby High School because of its poor record. They maintain there is a shortage of schools in Billericay, Brentwood and Shenfield.

Mr Fellowes said the group was already primed for the next stage of the battle.

He said: "If we cannot work with officers we will work around them.

"We are considering using one child to take action and prove the county council is not providing an adequate education. If we have to take it to the European courts so be it."

Essex LEA claims a new secondary school would not be sustainable in Basildon. Officers advised councillors at Monday's meeting not to waste funds on the study.

However, the group claims the education authority has miscalculated the number of future homes to be built in Langdon Hills.

It states 1,565 children could fill the new school in five years without affecting the intake of other Basildon schools. Basildon MP Angela Smith has now thrown her weight behind the campaign for the study.

She said: "We need to know the number of places in years to come not next week. I asked for a feasibility study some time ago."

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