A plan to build a new girls’ school in Toxteth was given the green light by Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet last night.
The approval to establish the Eden Girls’ Leadership Academy, off Upper Parliament Street, also came with a commitment to support a much-loved community centre on the site.
The approximately four-acre site is made of a number of council-owned parcels of land, parts of which are used by the African Caribbean Centre and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital for a car park.
At the meeting at the Town Hall, where ward councillors and residents were invited to address members, it was agreed by Cabinet that as part of the school decision the preferred option was for the community centre to also be retained on the current site. A consultation process with the community will now follow.
The school will be operated by Star Academies, and was approved to open in the city by the Department for Education (DfE) under its Free Schools Programme.
The school will have a Muslim faith designation, with potentially up to half of its pupils being Muslim, whilst pupils of all other faiths and none will also be welcomed into the school.
Its eventual roll call of 600 places will support the council in its statutory responsibility to provide school places. Liverpool currently has an increasing serious shortfall of secondary school places.
The council was required by the DfE to identify a site for the school which must satisfy their criteria.
The council identified 19 possible sites, exploring five in detail. The Toxteth site, bordered by Upper Parliament Street, Mulgrave Street and Selborne Street, was the only council-owned site that satisfied all the criteria.
Cllr Liam Robinson, Leader of Liverpool City Council, said: “I give a strong commitment to ward councillors, community representatives and other stakeholders that those discussions will be led by Councillor Lila Bennett, Cabinet Member for Employment, Educational Attainment and Skills, and will be meaningful, will be thorough and handled sensitively respecting the importance and heritage of the facility to the people of Liverpool 8 and further afield.
“It is regrettable the council hasn’t got that balance right in the past. I apologised to representatives of the community when I met with them recently, that communication and meetings with council officers over many years has at times fallen below the professional standards I expect.
“To re-iterate, no decision has been taken in relation to the African Caribbean Centre, other than our preferred option being it stays on the existing site. We will now consult with the local community and hear from them what they want for the future before anything is decided.”
