Children in Maidstone desperately need a new primary school and a special needs school to open as soon as possible – or there’s a real risk some could have to travel miles across the county every day. So I'm pleased that extra money has been made available so Maidstone’s two new schools can be built.
The Government has approved the additional capital investment needed for the project to move ahead.
Doubts over whether the schools could be connected to drainage were threatening to further delay the plans. It was so frustrating that after everything – getting the funding, getting all the organisations involved to work together, getting over worries about the location – something as simple as connecting the schools to the drains threatened to derail things. I pushed Education Minister Lord Agnew hard to think about the needs of children in Maidstone and Bearsted, and I am so glad he has agreed to make the extra money available. I’ll be working hard to get these schools through the planning process as smoothly as possible and get them open. He has now agreed to make the necessary investment in connecting the schools to local utilities.
The next step is to secure a building contractor and put in a planning application.
