The Education Funding Agency (EFA) has submitted its planning application (2016/02774/FUL) to the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham (LBHF) for the redevelopment of the Fulham Police Station site to provide a new home for The Fulham Boys School (FBS).
Greg Hands, Member of Parliament for Chelsea & Fulham and a patron of FBS – a Free School established in 2014 following the Government’s education reforms – has welcomed the progress made in finding a new home for the School.
The EFA’s planning application proposes the redevelopment of the site currently occupied by Fulham Police Station in order to provide a purpose-built, permanent new site for FBS with 800 pupils, while allowing for a Metropolitan Police front counter service, as well as creating nine new homes and shared community space.
Since this site was first proposed for FBS, Chief Superintendent Gideon Springer, Borough Commander for Hammersmith & Fulham, has reassured local residents and stakeholders that the way in which the local community accesses Metropolitan Police services in Fulham – whether to report a crime or to hand in lost property, for example – will stay the same. Ch. Supt Springer has emphasised that a police front counter service will remain in operational use, that the Borough’s neighbourhood policing teams will continue patrolling and supporting the community, and that the telephone and internet services will continue as before.
Ch. Supt Springer has also drawn attention to the fact that, before it closed on 6 June this year, Fulham Police Station was operating at only 35 per cent utilisation, and that the repurposing of the site on the corner of Fulham Road and Heckfield Place will reduce running costs and release significant will reduce running costs and release significant capital value, which in turn will be reinvested into new and improved facilities at Hammersmith Police Station, ultimately providing an improved service for residents across the Borough.
Speaking in response to the submission of the planning application, Member of Parliament for Chelsea & Fulham, Greg Hands, said: “It’s good news that FBS is making progress in its move to a permanent new site. I know that the Headmaster, Mr Alun Ebenezer, the Chairman of Governors, Mr Alexander Wade, the previous Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan MP, and the former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson MP, among others, have strived to secure a permanent site for this flourishing Free School.
“I have made my submission to Hammersmith & Fulham’s Planning Division, and I look forward to the School’s ongoing success.”
The planning application for the Fulham Boys School’s new site can be found here, enter the planning reference 2016/02774/FUL.