SILSDEN has been requiring a new school for far too long and I, like most other people I know, are looking forward to it.

A look at the building design reveals a beefy, linear design; ‘prison like’ harking to the 70s, offering only open, featureless play space of zero interest for young minds to explore and play around.

This is stark contrast at the present school, with its multitudes of varied creative play areas, spaces and grounds where multi-faceted buildings create spaces for hiding and exploring.

So, why isn’t the outside imaginative and the building responsive to learning opportunities? Where are protective spaces and intimate spaces?

With no possible shelter in this exposed, Pennine hill site it will limit play activities. I guess the lack of the word ‘curriculum’ in the design statement tells all.

Paradoxically, the building is designed to strict urban design criteria, yet will occupy a ‘green field’ site, beside open fields in the shadow of Rombalds Moor. There has been no rural sympathy involved here.

Of major concern is access. The traffic survey is unfit, being ill-conceived using a two-way traffic model stating overtaking will happen 90 per cent of the time. Dale View, Middleway and Aireville Mount, like other roads nearby, are not roads where overtaking is possible.

Overtaking is what you do to moving vehicles, not parked vehicles that the survey fails to address.

There appears to be no adjustment for the weather (people use cars more when it is bad) or for working parents, who drop off their children first before heading off.

And the same goes for future traffic when housing off Belton Road is completed or for the knock-on effect of neighbourhood parking and multi-trip usage with a parent in the nursery and one in the school.

The survey also contradicts the Design and Access Statement that highlights the difficulties at many junctions, access arrangements and congestion. Defying all logic and belief, it is given the ‘green light’.

Hidden in the documents, Bradford has kindly let known there is a large proposed development to the north and east of the site. Why does no-one know about these? If so, why can’t a main access to the school be inclusive within these proposals? Simple, really!

The ‘fit for purpose’ argument should be challenged. In its current form, it simply is not; Bradford still has some way to go to convince me.

PAUL REDSHAW Silsden