Jeremy Corbyn fights to save local schools from closing

Transcript

00:00Highbury Quadrant is a small primary school in my area and it is now earmarked for closure

00:06by the local education authority on the basis that its numbers are falling and yes the numbers

00:12have fallen because of declining birth rate and housing problems and housing stress in the area

00:18but it is a very important focal part of the community and the parent body is not the richest

00:25parent body in the borough by any manner of means. The neighbouring schools do not have space to

00:29absorb all the children that are here and so my concern is that we lose a community facility

00:35and the children don't have anywhere to go that's convenient for their parents and carers to get

00:41them there. It's a London wide phenomena particularly in inner London in fact all but

00:46two boroughs have got falling rolls. We've been here before, 1980s there was a whole process of

00:51falling rolls, sadly many schools closed during that period and the buildings were sold off and

00:58then overcrowding came a bit later on. Yes there is a cyclical thing, yes numbers will change in

01:04the future, new houses will be developed so on. We've got a plan for the future as well as the

01:08present and my view is this will be entirely sustainable if we reduce the volume of the

01:13building used for the school and that would keep that very important sense of community.