The documents below can be more easily read at – http://www.sheilaoliver.org/not-big-enough-one-year-on.html

28th April 2006

“..this building will be designed to teach 525 children …… CM (Colin Manning) produced C&YPD’s (Children and Young People’s Directorate) predictions of 563 children if all children currently at the Firtree and North Reddish are offered places.”

They had in October 2005 published an official notice promising all parents who wanted a place at the new school could have one – a promise they could never deliver.

They went on to come up with potential solutions – restrict numbers to 525, provide temporary classrooms until the roll dropped to around 525, increase class sizes, which was felt by said Colin Manning to be cramming children in and unacceptable from an education point of view according to him or they could build new classroom to accommodate the extra children, but the development was so tight for space this was never an option.

In response to a FOI request from me they admitted the birth rate in the area was rising sharply, so the school was never going to be big enough whatever they did.

WHY BUILD IT THEN? WHY NOT BUILD ON THE FIR TREE SITE OR RENOVATE THE EXISTING SCHOOLS? ANSWER, BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO FLOG OFF THE FIR TREE SITE FOR HOUSING AND WERE NOT INTERESTED AT ANY POINT IN THE WELFARE OF THE CHILDREN.

The executive councillors were warned several years ago, as were Director of Children’s Services Andrew Webb and Deputy Director Donna Sager, why waste £10million of council taxpayers’ money on a school which was always going to be too small?

Within one year of the Vale View School opening they were talking of having to re-open the old North Reddish School. They have now spent a fortune expanding Broadstone School, which is nowhere near.


The people responsible for this offence under the Fraud Act 2006 (it is an offence to act deliberately to cause someone a loss) then branded me as vexatious for raising the matter with them. No accountability at Stockport Council under the LibDems! Sager and Webb, responsible for a massive loss to the counciltaxpayer which they were aware of all through this project, banned all questions from me as being “vexatious”. They were merely covering up their own fraudulent actions.

As of 21st October 2013 all Executive Councillors are still banning all questions from me about this school as “vexatious”, as they have done for many years. They themselves are committing an offence under the Fraud Act 2006, as it is an offence to block access to documents pertaining to a fraud.

These are the Executive Councillors, past and present, responsible for blocking evidence along with Barry Khan, Council Solicitor and Eamonn Boylan, Chief Executive:

Susan Derbyshire, Leader
Mark Weldon
Martin Candler
Shan Alexander
Stuart Bodsworth
Keith Holloway
Wendy Meikle
Kevin Hogg
John Smith
David White
Iain Roberts

These people consider themselves unaccountable, so why vote for them?