While we were launching The Centre for School Design on Monday, we all missed this feature on Radio 4′s PM programme by Andrew Bomford, covering a new English Heritage report.
Broadly, the EH report promotes the renovation of older school buildings rather than the development of new ones – as English Heritage put it, ‘constructive conservation’.
A recent survey by English Heritage of 1,723 adults shows that two thirds think that refurbishing and extending old schools is more environmentally friendly than demolishing them and rebuilding new ones.
In the same survey, 83% of respondents feel that local councils should do more to find new uses for old, empty schools, and almost half (47%) feel that schools with historic character provide a more inspiring educational environment than modern ones. Three in four also say that historic schools contribute to the identity of a local area.
The R4 piece focuses on Elm Court School in Lambeth that was re-opened in March last year.
You can hear the whole thing – it’s only a short four-minute package) via the BBC iPlayer link (38mins and 10 secs in – listen to it as soon as you can as it may only be available for a short time). I’ll be posting a few more thoughts on refresh, refurb and remodelling later this week
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Thanks for flagging this up! I might have missed it if not! Its an interesting issue, that I am trying to cover with my MSc dissertation looking at the impact of BSF on the conservation of post-1945 listed London Secondary Schools.
Not a problem Tom – let us know how you get on with the research and we will publish a summary of your dissertation when its done on the site as i’m sure people will be interested in your work