Rye Town Council will be asked to agree next Monday, April 10, that the council should be represented on a new working group looking at the future of the former school in Tilling Green, now run as a community centre.
The land is owned by East Sussex Council (ESCC), currently chaired by local ESCC councillor Keith Glazier, who also chairs the Rye Partnership (which seeks to encourage and support local economic development and also currently runs the community centre).
The annual meeting of Rye Partnership was told recently that the community centre was a loss-making venture with high costs and too little used.
A Community Interest Company (CIC) had been set up to run a brand new community centre if housing association Amicus Horizon got planning permission for an associated housing development on the school site.
For two years the centre was believed to have been breaking even, but the then users did not find Amicus very forthcoming with information about what might happen, and the Rye Partnership was not very helpful either.
But the following year Cllr Glazier was reported as saying “we will not walk away and let this plan fail. We are committed to making this place work as a community centre”.
Nevertheless Amicus did not get planning permission for their proposals on account of the flood risks. However, housing has been approved, and built, recently both in Ferry Road and in Winchelsea Road because the housing design took account of flood risks – and both developments were in places much more clearly at risk from more immediate flood threats than Tilling Green.
However talks have been promised by Rye Partnership with both the Residents’ Association and the CIC after the county council elections, and Tracy Deighton from the CIC and local architect Dominic Manning asked the Town Council’s Policy Committee to join in those talks.
Deputy Mayor Mike Boyd thought the existing building might be remodelled and refurbished, and perhaps become a community asset transfer to the town council, but Cllr Jo Kirkham said the running costs were around £30,000 and Rye Partnership had had to subsidise these.
But Cllr Glazier had made it clear at the Partnership AGM that ESCC would not put any money into the centre, even for minor repairs, and would be unlikely to grant a lease of more than five years.
The town councillors also thought more information was needed on the current state of the building and whether the land involved might still be developed for housing despite the flooding risks.
Photo: Rye News Library
Surely time for East Sussex county council to relinquish the tilling green school to Rye town council, and I am sure funding,including some from Rye Partnership,and other grants and help from tradesmen from the community could turn this school, into a thriving community centre, for all in Rye. As for the playing field,that’s up to East Sussex county council, to sell to the highest bidder.
So , ESCC education dept decided some years ago that Tilling Green school built with extra foundations to allow a 2nd story of classrooms to be added for a growing population , circa 1953 to serve the young families of the newly constructed Tlling Green & also those to the west of the railway line was now’ surplus to requirements ‘ .. At that time they also made the decision without any consultation to to close Freda Gardham primary school in New Road just after the governors had had to make the heart breaking decision to lay off teaching assistants to find money to repair leaking roofs ! , All primary education in Rye to be on a new building adjacent to Thomas Peacock CC in Love Lane .. That has had to supplement its floor space with temporary classrooms !! … I have long believed that school facilities are under used & that after 4 p.m. greater community use could be made of these facilities & for a wile the concept of schools being Community College’s seemed one efficient way of maximising the facility …With the development of Valley Park & inevitable further housing planned for Rye a dedicated infant school is obvious . For the ESCC to cast aside this asset is further evidence of slop-a-nomics & to suggest that RTC should take on the running cost is compounding insult after RDC are also offloading it’s responsibility’s onto the towns & parish’s .. Use this much needed school for what it was excellently designed to do ..
TILLING GREEN COMMUNITY CENTRE
For more than the last 4 years, I have hired a room in the Tilling Green Community Centre, to run a photographic club, and as a hirer I was invited to attend the consultation meetings with the ‘developers’. I also attended the public meetings. I also submitted and had published a selection of possible development plans, which stirred the pot up.
I was called a scare monger for showing so many dwellings; on such a small site. But I was not far out with the dwelling numbers when the developers submitted their plans!
The problem with the site is that it is at the bottom of a hill, therefore the site is wet and boggy, and has a drainage problem. History shows that some of the houses built on the ‘Tilling Green Estate’ have sunk in the soft ground and had to be rebuilt!
To rectify the old school site it will need to be drained and it will cost a lot of money, and like all soft ground, the houses will need to be built with substantial foundations.
Basically the cost will push the price of the houses up, possibly to a point that their cost exceeds a reasonable sale price. Add to this the developers cost of building a community centre, off set by adding an extra charge to the house sale price, and the sums could easily mean a loss for any developer; hence the withdraw by the former developers.
The site is public property, administered by a council, which they want to sell to the highest bidder; to raise funds for other projects. Therefore I ask why should it not remain as being public property and be used by the public as a community centre. Come on the Town of Rye, claim it back from Rother and secure its future.