Former police station turned into education centre

The independent school, called Impact Education & Training Ltd, provides an additional teaching facility for 60 disadvantaged pupils within the borough who “would benefit from a placement away from their mainstream setting,” according to the planning application.

Seven objections were received by Sandwell council about the education centre, mainly related to anti-social behaviour.

One of the objectors who spoke in the meeting said she had lived at the property for a month but had submitted evidence to the council “damage that happened “to the property.

She said: “The resident parking it’s absolutely heaving and you know, as people who live there, we should have the right to to park there first.

“The criminal damage that’s taken place in the property since this incident we’ve had children climbing up onto the roof. We’ve had builders come out and they’ve confirmed that there’s some contributing damage to the roof because of the children climbing up.

“The current situation with the netting is not sufficient. We need something more tangible. It’s not safe for the children.

“The antisocial behaviour from walking out onto the street kids are just screaming, swearing, using inappropriate language. This isn’t viable. There are loads of us living on that street and we haven’t had this sort of problem before.

“I’m personally very scared to approach the kids because I don’t want the abuse. And I don’t really want any confrontation.”

But Terence Breen, headteacher at Impact Education & Training Ltd, said while some of his students had been banned from local shops due to anti-social behaviour, he believed parts of the objector’s claims were “defamatory really because they’ve never been in the school to see what we do inside”.

He said: “[The objectors] never really spoke to any of the students even though they’re not intimidating. But that’s opinions and I get people’s opinions on young people just generally.

“I’ve worked in the education for well over 25 years working with kids that haven’t had a break in life. Most of them don’t trust adults, and you can’t approach them anyway because we have to build up relationships.

“These students belong to everybody’s community until we start doing something with them. If it’s not the site, it’ll be somewhere else, but they are part of the communities that everybody dismisses.”

Mr Breen added that parking during school hours were a concern, and said his staff have been instructed not to park along the road during term hours.

“There is a mosque on a Friday and it is absolutely rammed on there. We struggle to get out on Friday. People parked on pavements and on double yellow lines everywhere. And the mosque have their own car park as well.”

Labour councillor Liam Preece said he “resonated” with the headteacher over young people’s education.

He said: “I think the point that the applicant made did resonate with me which is that if we reject the application, do we send a message to young people who attend here that society doesn’t want them or they’re not welcoming the community?

“That’s an incredibly damaging message to send to a young person going into adulthood that the community doesn’t want them or they’re not welcome.”

Labour councillor Ellen Fenton said asked Mr Breen if his pupils were the subject of any anti-social behaviour orders by West Midlands Police, but Mr Breen claimed “none of [his] pupils [were] involved.”

The councillor also expressed her outrage at the planning application referring to “types of pupils”.

“I actually find that quite discriminatory. The ‘type of pupils’ as in that language is quite outrageous to be honest. And I’m not sure that we can consider the type of a person as a material planning consideration myself. ”

The planning permission was approved.