Agenda item - Written questions from members of the public.

A list of public questions received by the due date of the 17^th October 2013 will be circulated separately as part of an addendum at the meeting.

33.1         The Mayor reported that two written questions had been received from members of the public and invited Mr. Georgiou to come forward and address the council.

33.2        Mr. Georgiou thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “I would like the council to outline their plans to prevent divisions emerging between the schools in Hove and Portslade and if a fairer distribution of funding needs to be implemented. Serious funding gaps now exist due to the council allowing the schools in Hove to grow with the financing of additional classrooms and facilities whilst the Portslade schools remain under capacity and as a consequence underfunded. My daughter has recently started in Reception at Brackenbury School and they face £54k deficit with their budget from last year meaning a Reception teacher has already been redeployed. As a consequence, as parents, we fear we are starting to see a decline in standards of a school that has recently been rated good by the Ofsted report.”

33.3        Councillor Shanks replied; “The issue is that the funding of schools is actually a national government formula and it’s at least 80% of the funding for schools is related to the number of children in the school. Another bit of the formula, is about the different circumstances of each school and the proportion of pupils who are disadvantaged or have special educational needs, so the amount for pupils in each school is different.

For example the average funding in 2013-14 for Portslade Primary Schools £3856 per pupil compared to £3414 in Hove and in Brackenbury, this year, is £3750 and the average for all primary schools is £3700 so they are similar.  It is a difficult thing to judge where preferences will be and so a decision was taken to increase the numbers at Brackenbury in fact to make it into Portslade Primary School and St. Nicholas’ School next door which was what the governors of those schools asked for and what parents wanted as well; to have through schools.

The council has invested a lot of money in that, we have put £1.5 million in to Brackenbury to provide the classrooms and we’re also investing in St. Peters in Portslade and in St. Nicholas’ Primary School. The numbers in Hove have increased a lot and the numbers in Portslade have also increased though not to the same extent and some parents are choosing to attend schools in Portslade and it’s not very far away but parents also have a choice and so they decide where they would rather go. We would like them to be able to go locally so we have also expanded some of our schools in Hove.

I think we’ve now reached the limit of that, we don’t want more capacity than we’ve got numbers of children so next year hopefully we will see that school full. It has been difficult but we have actually given some extra funding to Brackenbury to see them through that.”

33.4        Mr. Georgiou asked the following supplementary question; “If the capacity is reached next year then that potentially will mitigate the impact of the school remaining well below capacity this year and we feel that as a direct knock on effect by you increasing the capacity of the Hove schools where traditionally they would overspill in to Portslade we have the problem created from that so it would be good to monitor and make sure it does happen next year.”

33.5        Councillor Shanks replied; “That is our expectation, Brackenbury did have a good Ofsted recently and it’s a very good school I visited recently myself and I think the new building works have made it a nice place to be.”

33.6         The Mayor thanked Mr. Georgiou for his questions and invited Mr. Guichard to come forward and address the council.

33.7         Mr. Guichard thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “Currently the speed limit on Warren Road into Woodingdean from the top of Elm Grove is 40mph and doesn’t drop to 30mph until it reaches Roseberry Avenue just before the Nuffield Hospital, meaning traffic is travelling into the village round a dangerous corner and down Warren Hill at great speed!

Will Councillor Davey agree to reducing the speed limit on this very busy road from 40mph down to 30mph

a.                  Either from the top of Elm Grove

b.                  The junction with Wilson Avenue

c.                  Just before the junction with Downland Road.

The preference from the residents of the Woodingdean Association would be from the top of Elm Grove all the way down to the village.”

33.8        Councillor Davey replied; “It isn’t actually within my gift to reduce speed limits and when looking at changing speed limits it is necessary to carry out detailed analysis on the road conditions, speed surveys, traffic counts and looking at accident data as well as road geometry and a lot of that has been going on in the central city area as you’re probably aware.

Warren Road is already planned to be looked at as part of the phase 3 work of the 20 Mile per hour speed limits project and we’ll be looking at that next year. At that point there’ll be an opportunity for local residents, businesses and Ward Councillors to feed into that process with information about what local issues and to present any specific suggestions that you might have about how any problems can be addressed and then final decisions will be made by the Environment Transport and Sustainability Committee.

So I think that will be an opportunity to look at road safety improvements in that whole area and I look forward to the ongoing engagement when that comes up.”

33.9        Mr. Guichard asked the following supplementary question; “The fact that throughout the City, we are dropping the speed limit to 20 miles per hour; it doesn’t it make sense that we in Woodingdean are still driving at 40 miles an hour. There’s such a big difference that dropping down to 30 miles an hour with immediate effect or as soon as possible will be very legitimate.”

33.10    Councillor Davey replied; “I must repeat that it is not within my gift to decide speed limits anywhere and it will need to be looked at as part of a proper survey and in co-operation with the police and the local community and that can be done next year in the Phase 3.”

33.11    The Mayor thanked Mr. Guichard for attending the meeting and his questions and noted that concluded the item.