11:55am Friday 30th November 2007
By Paul Cahalan
Outraged parents will fight plans to turn their school in Tooting Bec Common into 10 floodlit football pitches.
Wandsworth Council has told Waldorf School its lease would not be renewed when it runs out in April 2008, and it will have to close at the end of the school year in July.
The school, which has 89 pupils aged three to 14 and provides an alternative to state education, said any move to close it and develop parkland would be challenged.
Philip Martyn, a school trustee, said: "It is completely outrageous to evict us after 21 years in Tooting Common. We have been a good tenant but it appears that the council has its eye on a bigger deal.
"We did not lease our land from a supermarket. We expect the council to protect the common, not develop it."
Mr Martyn said pupils from Wandsworth, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark would be affected.
Councillor Katharine Tracey, the council's executive member for children services, said the land, which is actually in Lambeth but is controlled by Wandsworth Council, was needed for youth provision. She said the school was told about the situation years ago.
She said: "The school was burnt down three years ago and at that stage it was told we wouldn't be extending the lease. We need to have a youth provision there."
The school, which also runs a small playgroup for younger children, said it would not have rebuilt the site if it thought the lease would not be renewed.
Coun Tracey said the council was inviting tenders for up to 10 floodlit five-a-side pitches, but added the Triangle Playgroup and One O'Clock Club, also in the common, were safe. She said the refurbishment of the Triangle playground could be financed by the new contractor.
Sarah Fanconi Thorne said her son Artie, four, had benefited from education at the school but worried about the summer.
She said: "I face the prospect of having to find Artie a state school place quickly.
"Last year I didn't get any of my choices."
Wardorf schools are privately run, non-profit schools, maintained by fees - some parents get a bursary for working at the school."
The council needs special planning permission to build on common land and an application is due to be submitted in the coming months.
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