Liberal Democrat councillors are pressing the Government to provide the money for new school buildings for our local children.

 “Anyone who has visited schools such as Leytonstone, Norlington, Connaught and George Mitchell knows how much new buildings are needed. We owe it to the children of our borough to do all we can to provide them with the high quality education they deserve. This includes making sure that they can learn in decent surroundings,” said Liberal Democrat and  Forest Ward Councillor Farooq Qureshi.

The Liberal Democrat group is hugely disappointed that the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme has hit local schools so badly. It is an enormous shame, but if Labour had made faster progress with the BSF schemes since 2003 we would not now be in the situation where more Waltham Forest schools have been stopped compared with other boroughs.  However Lib Dem councillors believe the most important thing is what happens next. 

Local campaigner Samina Safdar says: “BSF was a cumbersome, bureaucratic and expensive way of funding school buildings which funnelled money into the pockets of consultants and private contractors. The government has pledged to continue to invest in school buildings and the Liberal Democrats will be at the forefront of the campaign to make sure that Waltham Forest schools get their fair share of this spending.”