ONCE GONE – GONE FOREVER
The story of Edenbridge Rugby Football Club’s fight for the Eden Valley School Site.
Summary
This is a story of the 5 hectares (17.5 acres) of Green belt land occupied by the former Eden Valley School.
Closed in July 2002, it has taken Kent CC (who prides itself on its concern for the environment) more than 5 years to bring forward plans that eat up the Green belt with yet more houses for Edenbridge.
The planning application recently submitted by Kent to build a Community Centre and 40 houses on the site is all about raising money. In a 37 page Statement of more than 12,000 words that accompanies the application, Kent attempts to justify the many pressures that merit a special case why it should be allowed to build houses on the site. Theirs is a weak case. Edenbridge is changing fast from a small Kent Market Town to a London dormitory suburb under the pressure of increased house building that has already taken place and that is in the pipeline. See:
• Sevenoaks DC figures for Edenbridge Council Tax Bands 2001-7• Fox and Mainwaring Report
Edenbridge Rugby Football Club expressed an interest in the site as long ago as February 2002, when closure was announced. It has also submitted a planning application to convert the soundly constructed Science Block to a Pavilion, to convert the land to three rugby pitches and to move its headquarters from the Recreation Ground.
For ERFC this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be their own masters and, if successful, would retain this site as open land for posterity.
This application as it stands does not have to succeed.
It should not succeed.
It must not succeed.
With your support it will not succeed
Read on to find out how you can help.
N.B. There will be ongoing additions to this site as facts and figures and public contributions become available.
History of Eden Valley site and Edenbridge RFC involvement
• School built in stages progressively from the late 50s to 1980, when the Science Block was built.
• Thereafter the school, administered by Kent CC Education Department had a chequered existence, and its reputation went into decline. With the introduction by central government of parental choice, local parents chose to send their children to other schools, thus reducing class numbers in the lower age groups.
• The school, capable of accommodating 600 plus pupils fell in numbers threatening future viability. In February 2002, the decision was taken to close the school.
• ERFC wrote to Kent CC in February 2002 expressing their interest in the site as a HQ. This was acknowledged by Kent CC, who said they had not yet made plans
• The first proposal was to build a new Primary School. Glamorous ideas based on an all weather school in Finland were discussed.
• Such a move would have freed up the highly valuable central site of the Primary School for development by KCC.
• The Primary School decided that they preferred to stay where they were.
• Then the concept of a Community Centre was voiced and with it the idea that there would be associated housing built to pay for it.
• ERFC recognising that Green belt legislation meant it would be difficult to “new build” the size of clubhouse that it would need to support its operations, investigated the conversion of an existing school building.
• Kent CC had made great play of the crumbling state of the buildings. Such was not the case with the 2 storey Science Block. Sited in the north-west corner, built in 1980, it was in sound structural condition, with large rooms that lent itself to conversion to a superb clubhouse. See Clubhouse Proposals
• ERFC thought the idea of recycling an existing building would appeal to the much publicised recycling philosophy of Kent CC.
• Not so. Kent intended that the school would be totally flattened, as in their judgement this would allow the whole school footprint ( basically the plan area of the school buildings) to be rebuilt, so maximising the number of houses that could be built. ERFC were politely told to go away and come back later for what scraps of playing field were left.
• It was at this point some two years ago that ERFC decided that the “once in a lifetime” opportunity to obtain our own premises could not be missed and would be pursued. Houses a plenty were being built in Edenbridge and to cover Green belt land so close to the town centre was a travesty. Hence our campaign
Once GONE, gone forever.