The area known locally as “The Rec” now includes a pirate ship with slide and tunnel as well as the usual roundabouts and swings. Apart from a few elements salvaged from the previous playground, the new elements are made from natural wood sculptures with sand and grass to soften the area instead of the previous soft tarmac.

While the younger kids will enjoy the tradiitional elements of the park,  some of the teenagers from the area have already started to make use of the large tree-stumps to practice backflips into the sand. These and other tricks form the current freerunning and parkour craze fueled by videos on Youtube.

While the construction work was ongoing there were complaints about some children breaking into the area. In the last few weeks the construction workers had been allowing them in during the evening.  At one point the police turned up and took names of some children in the park. According to a council worker no real harm was done in Langdon Hills except that some barriers were knocked down overnight. The identical playground in Vange has not fared so well with significant vandalism affecting the area during building.

There have been concerns raised about the long standing problem in the area with people entering the park late at night on Fridays and Saturdays. They often arrive in cars after pub closing and use the area for late drinking time. Often broken bottles and even syringes and condoms are left to be found in the morning. With the potential dangers caused by hidden glass in the sand the locals hope the police will act to stamp out this anti-social behavior. The council worker who I spoke to this morning was well aware of these problems and has vowed to keep the place safe and clean.

Finally it is safe for people to go back onto the park without fear from the travellers and their dogs. Let’s hope the council have learnt some lessons. Where will they go next?

Police have advised members of the public in the area to be cautious because the camp is surrounded by kennels housing several large dogs. At times the travellers have let the dogs loose in the park.  Despite their very public choice of location they do not like attention. When I approached to take pictures of the rubbish and their dogs they shouted obscenities and threats. One teenage girl shouted that she would kick in my windows.

The police have now said that they cannot move them on until Thursday when a court order will take effect. This contrasts with police working with councils in other parts of Essex where they have been able to move travellers on within a day when they have camped on common land.

In addition to heeding the police advise to keep your distance, it is strongly suggested that you take extra care to secure your homes while the travellers are in the area. Do not leave pet dogs tied up unattended. Lock your sheds. Do not leave bicycles out, even if padlocked. Do not leave scrap metal that they can take and do not accept offers of casual labour if they knock on your door. If you see anything suspicious you should call the police.

At 8pm a police van was seen to cross the field to approach the travellers as they sat around a table. After a minute the police left. Shortly afterwards the travellers lit a fire in the corner of the park as people from nearby houses looked on in disgust.

To combat the problem there will be high visibility patrols on the street with police ready to exercise their stop and search powers in these areas. As a longer term solution the possibility of a youth club being created for Langdon Hills has been raised. Langdon Hills has been without any indoor meeting place for teenagers since the closure of the youth club at the old Langdon Hills primary school in the 1970s.

The decision notification posted on the council website says:

“The consultation closed on Friday 12 February with no objections to the arrangements as a whole, although a considerable level of response was received in relation to the specific consultation on a proposed revision to the admission arrangements for Great Berry and Lincewood Primary Schools. The arrangements for these schools and all other community controlled schools are determined as attached.” 

The attached copy of the admission arrangements shows only the standard criteria for Great Berry and Lincewood with no shared admission area as previously included. Assuming that these documents will be approved by the cabinet member Stephen Castle, this means that the proposal for the shared admission area will be rejected.

This is a victory for local residents over the school governors, but it will be a hollow victory if it means that no alternative arrangements are made to cater for children from the Great Berry priority admission area. There may be some who put the school down as their first choice and are not allocated a place there. In some past years the school has put on extra classes to cater for the surplus demand. When the surrounding housing estates were new, the demand was very high and extra buildings were constructed to allow three years intake to have an extra class. Currently there is just one year with an extra class so there is scope to have more extra classes for future years if demand is high. However the two other extra classrooms have now been used for a library and an ICT room and the school will be reluctant to use them for extra classes again.

Parents with children to be admitted in 2011 will now have an anxious wait to see how they fare. The demand for places is expected to be at a lower level than previous years but a few may still lose out. If the next few years there is likely to be a small rise in demand due to new housing such as the extension of the estate on the land owned by Tesco next to the railway. Only a further expansion of the Great Berry Primary School can provide a permanent solution to this problem that has dogged the area for the last decade. We will now have to wait to see what plans the schools come up with.

One answer is that not many people realise that more than four choices would be a possibility so they don’t ask for it. Another factor is that people only come up against this problem when their children move up to secondary school and once it is over they are no longer concerned about it. If nobody says anything, the council just pick a figure that suits them and leaves it at that. I’m interested to know how many people do think we should have more choices so I have set up a Facebook group called More School Choices In Essex that you can join if you agree.

I also wanted to know why the council thinks we should have only 4 choices, so I asked Councillor Stephen Castle who is the cabinet member for education in Essex, and he gave me a detailed reply. His full response is here: SKMBT_C20310030811300 . These are the main points he made and what I think of them:

“Other similar shire authorities, like Essex, also provide for either 3 or 4 preferences to be expressed.” – This is true of some other shire authorities but there are plenty of other similar local authorities who allow more than 4 choices. E.g. Thurrock, Southend-on-Sea, Havering, Medway, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire and North Yorkshire.

“In London, all of the London local authorities (and Thurrock) are part of a single coordinated Pan-London admissions scheme under which all of those authorities allow up to six preferences. This is in recognition of the very significant cross border movement across local authority boundaries in London, and the fact that in many areas, there will be perhaps up to six (or even more) secondary schools within a relatively short distance of each other.” - Families in Essex can also choose from schools in other local authorities and 6.1% of applicants from Essex were offered a school in other areas such as Thurrock, Havering and Southend-on-Sea. Although the distances in Essex may be greater, the number of schools from which applicants choose is far more than six in some areas of Essex. For example there are about seven secondary schools which run school bus services from Langdon Hills and several others that take smaller numbers. That’s without even counting the grammar schools and independent schools.

“97% of parents have actually been offered a place at one of their preferred schools. It is therefore the case that the overwhelming majority of parents in Essex get an offer of a place at a school of their preference.” -  This figure still means that 500 applicants did not get offered one of their preferred schools. If these people were spread evenly over Essex it might be acceptable. However, the figures for individual districts are as follows:

1. Rochford – 100%
2. Castle Point – 99.2%
3. Uttlesford – 98.8%
4. Maldon – 98.5%
5. Chelmsford – 98.4%
6. Brentwood – 98.1%
7. Epping – 97.3%
8. Colchester – 97.1%
9. Harlow – 96.8%
10. Braintree – 96.6%
11. Basildon – 95.1%
12. Tendring – 94.4%

These figures show that there is a larger proportion of people who are not getting their preference schools in a few districts, especially Basildon and Tendring. These themselves are large areas and it is likely that the problem is really concentrated in a few wards such as Langdon Hills. Unfortunately the council can’t give me figures for individual wards which means they don’t even look at them.  

“.. depends on other factors, such as … how realistic parents are when making their applications. … I understand that a number of parents in the Langdon Hills area do decide not to express a preference for the local school, The James Hornsby High” - Here at last we see the real reason why the council limits the amount of parental choice. They want to force us into the local sink schools. It is a misguided policy that seeks to improve the schools average attainment results by making children from more affluent areas go there. This would improve their league table statistics without actually improving the exam results for the people from the more deprived areas.

I have passed these responses back to councillor Stephen Castle but at the moment it seems unlikely that he will respond further. I have also made these points to John Schofield who is the Essex councillor for Langdon Hills, but he is satisfied with Stephen Castle’s perspective. t is unlikely that the opinion of one person will influence council policy so if you agree with the need for more choices please show your support by joining the Facebook Group More School Choices In Essex, and please send Facebook group invites to any friends, kids and parents in Essex.

When I got home I wondered if there was a similar scheme in our area. Being a bit of an old sod I had never really thought of doing voluntary work before, but inspired by these youngsters I could see myself contributing more to our community while perhaps making some new friends in the area. I decided to bite the bullet and phone the council to see what was going on, which I did a few days later.

Well at first the lady on the other end of the phone seemed a bit confused and was not sure what I was talking about. I explained what I had seen again and asked if there was a similar scheme closer to langdon Hills that I could join. I was sure it was something run by the council. She asked how the people were dressed and I described the bright orange jackets they were wearing with the words “Community Payback” written clearly on the back.

From that point the conversation got really bizarre. She said that it was not a scheme I could join because it was reserved for people who had committed a crime. I was furious! Surely it is not only criminals that are allowed to enjoy themselves and help the community. Then the lady really seemed to lose the plot. She suggested that the work the people were doing was not fun at all and was actually more like a form of punishment. I assured her that quite a lot of people enjoy helping their community and often do it  just for the chance to meet people and get some good excercise. The young people I had seen on Friday certainly seemed to see it that way. It was no use. No matter what I said it was clear that I was not going to be allowed to join the scheme.

So now I have decided to start a similar scheme myself in Langdon Hills. Obviously I am going to drop the requirement that participants must have committed a crime because otherwise the only person eligible here would be that weird guy who scrawled graffiti over hundreds of cars a couple of years back. However, I have decided to keep the name “Community Payback” because I think it is a catchy name that will make people want to join the scheme. I’ve found a good supply of jackets and it shouldn’t be so hard to stick the scheme name on the back. Now all I need is a few people who want to get involved and some suggestions for things we could do to improve the area around Langdon Hills. If you are interested in joining please send me an email to notreally@lamgdonhills.org, thanks

This week they have moved on to doing yellow lines and have extended the existing scheme around Laindon Station so that it goes another hundred meters or so into the residential areas. You may remember that they started putting down yellow lines around the station a few years back when the private car park across the bridge from the station was sold for a housing development. To compensate a much smaller car park was added nearer the station. of course this was never going to be enough and commuters were forced to park wherever they could legally park nearby.

Needless to say the council’s response was to make it illegal to park near the station by putting down single yellow lines. The result was that the parked cars moved a little further from the station into residential areas. It seems that the commuters were still not getting enough excercise so the council are addressing the problem by making the yellow lines extend a little further away.

Needless to say this has its pros and cons for residents. I for one will be glad to be able to turn right at the bottom of Great Berry Lane without the obstacle of cars parked opposite the junction. On the other hand I will have to have a good look round to make sure “The Basildon Beast” is not cruising nearby before I stop to post a letter there.

Another problem that faces a few residents is that the yellow lines now pass outside their house. Of course most people in the area do not have enough drive way to accommodate their three cars and all garages in the area were obviously designed at a time when it was thought the mini was the car of the future. So most people need some extra parking space in the road. At least one shrewd resident found a great way to avert the problem. He simply ignored the council’s instructions to make sure his car was not parked in the road when they were due to come round for some “essential maintenance”. As a result he now has a convenient break in the yellow lines just outside his house where he will always be able to park. I bet a few of his neighbors are kicking themselves for not thinking of it themselves.