Toby Young Is Two Years Late

Regular Zelo Street readers will recall the saga of the loathsome Toby Young and his West London Free School (WLFS), which should have relocated by 2013 to Palingswick House on King Street in Hammersmith. This event did not come to pass; indeed, in the intervening period, taxpayers (that means you and I, whether we want to or not) had to stump up more than £9 million for an office block on Bridge Avenue.

Behold a role model for Free School applicants everywhere

This purchase, with WLFS having to compete on the open market to secure the building, which has very little outside space, was clearly intended to buy not just space, but time. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the work to adapt Palingswick House was not exactly racing ahead, and last year, when WLFS had its hiatus and had to remove its head teacher mid-term, the building was still not ready.

But Tobes has now told parents and carers that all is now well: part of WLFS will move into Palingswick House in September this year, which is two years later than first intended. So that’s that, is it? Well, no it isn’t: despite Tobes telling that “work got underway before Christmas and Willmott Dixon report that they are ahead of schedule … the school will move into Palingswick House in phases rather than all at once”, all is not finalised.

He continues “The plan is for 240 pupils to re-locate at the beginning of Michaelmas term, with the rest following just after Christmas” (one side-effect of Tobes’ Very Wonderful “Classical Liberal” education is that it’s too bleedin’ common to say “Autumn” like everyone else), but then cautions “However, if the refurb isn’t finished, Willmotts will install temporary classrooms in front of Palingswick House”.

This may be a tad optimistic: the planning application has indeed gone in for eight temporary structures - classrooms and toilet facilities - to be installed at the Palingswick House site, but there is no sign of it having been accepted. There is also the problem that “The proposed development adjoins a conservation area and may affect its character or appearance”. So all may not be plain sailing, as well as being more than two years late.

On top of all that, there has been a requirement to remove contaminants from the area, which will not have been performed as a charitable act by whoever did the work. This brings us back, once again, to the question of how much this is costing (the easier part, who is paying, is of course, once again, the taxpayer). Perhaps the Freedom of Information Act may prove useful in this regard.

Meanwhile, Tobes takes any and every chance to tell anyone who will listen that Free Schools are A Very Wonderful Thing, while managing not to mention all the extra millions that have had to be shelled out to keep his own establishment show on the road. One should bear in mind his adverse comment on the previous Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme: this, it was concluded, was wasteful.

One look at the Palingswick House saga suggests Tobes is in a very draughty glasshouse.