Michael Gove, the Conservative Shadow Schools Secretary, has said that under a Conservative Government, Bexleyheath School would be split up and privatised. Gove is pictured with local Tory candidate David Evennett.

The shock plans are based on the Conservative proposals to privatise the schools system and to allow private companies to take over local schools for profit. Mr Gove said that schools with more than 1,500 pupils are too big and that his preference was for children to attend small schools run by parents, private companies or charities.

Bexleyheath School was London’s largest with 2,070 pupils last year. It recently emerged from “special measures” after Ofsted found staff had begun to turn around weaknesses in teaching.

Read about Mr Gove’s plans to break up schools like Bexleyheath here and here.

Leading headteachers were quick to condemn the plans. Steve Robson, the head of a school in Hillingdon rated “outstanding” by Ofsted said bigger schools could give pupils more choice over courses. “(Success) is not down to the size of the school at all. It’s more down to the quality of management and staff in it,” he said.

Schools Minister Vernon Coaker accused the Tories of “making false promises to parents”.

He added: “They have no idea how they would pay for hundreds of new free market schools with hundreds of thousands of surplus places, without big cuts to existing schools.”

Howard Dawber said: “Bexleyheath school is a big, popular school working hard to turn round performance and to offer a wide ranging curriculum to students. The Tories’ plans are based on a dogmatic view about how schools should be organised, not on what provides a good, rounded education for young people.”

“I call on David Evennett to distance himself from the Tories’ plans to privatise and split Bexleyheath school.”

Revelations this week that Tory donor Lord Ashcroft, the so-called “sleaze from Belize”, may have used his tax-exempt Non Dom status to get out of VAT payments on opinion polls and focus groups  have hit local MP David Evennett.

Local Labour Party research has discovered that Michael Ashcroft (pictured left with Tory Leader Cameron) commissioned special polling in Mr Evennett’s Bexleyheath & Crayford constituency  as part of his 2005 support for the Conservatives election campaign.

See the polling research here on Lord Ashcroft’s own website.

Howard Dawber said: “David Evennett should immediately release details of how much money and support Lord Ashcroft gave local Tories during the 2005 election. If any of this money was received from illegal sources, or VAT was avoided,  it should be paid back straight away.”

National homeless charity Shelter have said that it will take 10 years for Bexley Council to clear its waiting list for social housing – leaving people waiting nearly a generation to get into a housing association property.

There are currently 16, 222 people on the waiting list – an increase of 770 in the last two years – yet Bexley under the Tories has delivered less than 500 new social and affordable homes in 4 years.

Howard Dawber says: “Under the Tories, house building has boomed with prime council-owned sites like the Howbury in Slade Green and Crayford Town Hall being handed over to private developers to make a huge profit.”

“But the Council is trying to keep the number of social and affordable units as low as possible.”

“We have a duty to help people get a secure home – there are many vulnerable families with young children and older people on the list – but Bexley does not seem to care.”

“When he was Mayor, Ken Livingstone asked Bexley to make sure 50% of the new homes built here were for social housing or affordable housing. Bexley managed to deliver just 15%.”

“At the end of 2008, the new Tory Mayor of London Boris Johnson let Bexley and other Tory Councils off the hook by reducing the number of affordable homes they are expected to provide. The Tory Councils are being asked to deliver just 30% of the affordable housing in London while 9 Labour councils are expected to deliver 70%.”

Tory Councillor John Waters, the cabinet member for housing, admits that Bexley does not want as much social housing as other places. He told BBC News:

“While we comply with statutory requirements, we have never accepted that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is correct for the whole of London. Therefore the amount of affordable housing in Bexley may well be less than 50%.”

Howard says: “We all know why Bexley Tories take this view. Labour Councils are prepared to do more for poorer people while the Conservatives are worried that if they build social housing, more people will vote Labour. People on the waiting list and in temporary accommodation are less likely to register to vote. It’s gerrymandering on a colossal scale.”

“If the Tories win the general election it will be even worse because they have pledged to abandon regional housing targets altogether.”

“I think Shelter’s estimate that Bexley can clear its list of 16,222 people in 10 years is hopelessly optimistic – at the rate of 125 houses a year it would take 129 years to provide homes for all those people – and that’s assuming no-one new joins the list.”

See also:

Shelter names Tory Bexley as one of the worst in London for delivering affordable and social housing