BA comment on abandoned Girls' School Expansion Plan

The BEO forwarded the following message from the Barbican Association

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Statement from the Barbican Association about the Girls’ School Expansion Plans

The BA issued the following statement in response to the City of London School for Girls announcing that it has decided not to take its expansion plan forward in its current form.

“The Barbican Association welcomes the decision by the governors of the City of London School for Girls to drop the current plans for the school’s expansion. The proposed development, the length of a football pitch, would have represented an extraordinarily large intrusion into the unique, grade II* listed landscape of the Barbican Estate and the governors appear to have recognised that it was unlikely to be granted planning permission or listed building consent in the face of determined opposition by residents and others who care about the estate and its architecture.

“We note that the school’s statement says “the need for an expansion remains”. The school has already expanded several times on its present site and we do not believe it can expand any further within the Barbican Estate without doing irreparable damage to its environment.

The school has clearly outgrown its present location and while we would be very happy to see the existing school remaining as part of the Barbican community, we believe that any further expansion must necessarily take place in an alternative location.​We believe there are opportunities for expansion very close to the estate.

In the event that any changes within the estate are proposed, we hope to see the school and the City working with residents and their representatives in a more open and collaborative way.”

Please click here for the link to the Barbican Association website.