100 squatters invade building earmarked for new free school

MORE than 100 squatters have taken over a dilapidated school building, hampering plans to develop it into a free school.

Bellevue Place Education Trust wants to open Whitehall Park Free School on the site of the old Ashmount primary in Highgate next September.

The occupation of the building halts a years-long dispute between education campaigners and Islington borough council over the future of the site. The council wants to use it to provide more social housing.

The privately-owned Bellevue Place trust has sent a letter to the squatters urging each of them not to become “a pawn in the LBI’s [London Borough of Islington] game to delay the process” of developing the free school and “undermine the efforts and campaigning of local parents and residents since 2008”.

Three weeks ago — days after Islington council cancelled an annual security contract for the premises — about 100 squatters moved into the building, bringing with them large furniture and a pool table.

Local resident Teva Hesse said the squatters moved in hours after the caretakers left. He added: “The council appears to have allowed the property to have been taken over.

“I just hope the squatters don’t hinder plans for the free school because they certainly won’t make things easier.”

The site became vacant in January 2013 and groups such as the Ashmount Site Action Group have campaigned for it to remain in educational use.

Adam Roberts from ASAG said: “At the moment the only educational option for the site seems to be for a free school and we support that. In years to come people will be grateful because it will solve the growing primary school places crisis.”

One of the squatters, who did not wish to be named, said: “We’re not opposed to a free school specifically, but we want this site to be a school which is open for everyone. We don’t want a free school which is in the hands of a private company and is there for profit.

“We’re respectful of the community and of this building. It’s winter time, there’s nowhere to live, there are people in here who have been on the streets. There are guys in here who are 60 with nowhere to go.” The council is seeking an eviction notice. Joe Caluori, executive member for children and families, said: “At a time of severe government funding cuts, the council could not afford to keep paying in the region of £40,000 a year to maintain a vacant building which may well be taken from us by the Department for Education.”

Islington council had earmarked the land to sell for social housing to ease the borough’s overcrowding problem.