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New school, but at what cost?

Adam Derbyshire
28/ 7/2004

A HEADTEACHER who stood and watched his school demolished to make way for the Metrolink has spoken of his sadness that it will not now go ahead.

More than £2 million was spent knocking down the majority of St Mary's Primary School in Ashton Road, Droylsden.

It was rebuilt just 40ft further back from Manchester Road - but now headteacher Ian Spencer has been left wondering what it was all for.

The proposal to knock down two thirds of the historic building and gobble up part of the playground to make way for the new Metrolink line brought furious reactions from parents and pupils.

Protestors sprung into action to fight the plans but their efforts were in vain.

The government gave GMPTE £2.3 million to move the school, with £200,000 of that coming from the Department for Education's own budget.

Mr Spencer said: "They wanted to use the school playground to build the tram station so the only way to give us back the land was to re-build the school further back on a more compact patch of land.

"It is a bit sad that this has been done if the work won't be finished off. We are in the new school and it is nearly finished and is very nice and we feel we have got a good deal for the children, but obviously you do wonder what it was all for.

"All the Victorian part of the school has come down and that made up about two thirds of the building. Obviously we have mixed feelings about the tram but now that we have had to move it would be nice to see it finished in a way because that was the whole purpose of moving the school."

When the plan was first announced, parents sent hundreds of letters of objection to then Transport Secretary Sir George Young and pupils put up posters in their classrooms and did a sponsored 'hearse wash' with a local funeral director to help raise cash for a fighting fund. The new school opened in October last year.

The Droylsden stop was to be the eighth stop from Piccadilly on the Ashton line.