For years, residents and parents in North Chingford were told that Yardley Primary School needed to expand. We, as local councillors, backed that plan. We defended it publicly when there was opposition. We did not object to the planning application despite considerable political pressure to do so. We trusted that the Council's own pupil place planning was sound.
Now, without warning to ward councillors, the community, or the school itself, the Council has quietly shelved the expansion. The explanation offered is that pupil place planning has "changed considerably" in recent years, and that falling rolls across the borough make expansion unsustainable.
Except the Council's own figures tell a different story. Yardley is an incredibly popular local school, consistently oversubscribed and sought after by families across North Chingford. The expansion would have taken Yardley from a two form of entry school to a three form of entry school, increasing capacity from 60 to 90 children a year. According to data supplied to members, forecast and actual pupil numbers across the Chingford North planning area have tracked closely together every year since 2021, with a variance never exceeding five children: 243 forecast against 240 actual in 2021, 238 against 241 in 2022, 270 against 265 in 2023, 269 against 266 in 2024, and 257 against 257, an exact match, in 2025. Yardley's own figures are just as close, with forecast reception numbers of 60, 60, 90, 90 and 90 sitting almost exactly alongside actual numbers on roll of 61, 60, 88, 90 and 89. This was not a case of wildly inaccurate forecasting suddenly catching up with reality. The figures were broadly right, and demand for places at the school has remained strong throughout. What changed was not the data, but the Council's appetite for the project.
That distinction matters, because taxpayers have already paid £741,000 towards this expansion, on top of £602,624 for a separate phase of works completed in December 2024. A total capital allowance of £7.2 million was set aside for the wider expansion and kitchen and dining works. We are told none of this is "aborted" spending because elements of the design work may be reused for a scaled back scheme. Residents will want more clarity on exactly how much of that £741,000 has genuinely been preserved in value, and how much has simply been spent pursuing a project that will now never be delivered as planned.
Then there is St Francis Pre School. For over thirty years it served local families from a site at Yardley. At the time its closure was proposed, we campaigned against it. We raised concerns directly with the school and the Council, made clear how much the preschool meant to local families, and argued the case for keeping it open. Yardley itself was left with little choice, needing the space to accommodate the bulge classes and expansion the Council was pushing through. St Francis closed after Yardley served notice to end its lease, a direct consequence of the very expansion plans the Council has now abandoned. The Council now describes the lease as a matter arranged and managed independently of the Council, yet also confirms it was actively involved in trying to find the preschool an alternative model, including exploring whether it could operate from a smaller space on site. Council officers were clearly not bystanders. Having pushed through an expansion that directly caused the closure of a much-loved thirty-year-old community preschool, against local opposition, the Council cannot now simply walk away from that project and pretend the consequences never happened.
Circumstances do change, and school place planning across London is genuinely difficult. But residents, staff who lost their jobs, and families who lost a valued local nursery deserve straight answers, not a narrative that does not match the Council's own figures, and not a decision that overlooks just how in demand this school genuinely is.
Three things should now happen. First, a full and independently verifiable account of every pound spent, and what value, if any, has actually been retained. Second, an honest explanation of why forecasts that were largely accurate were used to justify abandoning a scheme that ward councillors and the community had been assured was needed, for a school that families are still desperate to get their children into. Third, a proper acknowledgement, and an apology, to the St Francis Pre School community, whose closure was a direct consequence of a scheme the Council has now walked away from, and whose warnings the Council chose to ignore.
Waltham Forest residents are not asking for perfection. They are asking for honesty. On this issue, so far, they have not had it.
Cllr Mitchell Goldie is a Conservative councillor for Chingford Green Ward.
