The panel at Tuesday’s public meeting on the proposed closure of St Dominic’s Primary School in Gospel Oak

PARENTS urged council chiefs to do more to protect working-class families as a public meeting heard how a fee-paying education provider was now renting out space in one of Camden’s most recently shut down state schools.

Furious parents faced down a panel of governors, diocese chiefs, council officers and councillors in St Dominic’s Catholic School in Southampton Road on Tuesday night.

The historic primary school is expected to close next year in what is seen as the latest victim of a gentrification crisis that has seen large numbers of children leave Camden as their parents search for affordable homes outside of the capital.

Those that leave are being replaced by new wealthy families who can afford to pay for private education – the latest statistics show how more than 40 per cent of Camden children are now in fee-paying private schools.

Tuesday’s meeting heard how the council’s flagship regeneration schemes were failing to stop a transformation that is having a profound impact on long-standing communities across the borough.

Kirsty, an NHS nurse, said: “You haven’t mentioned 40 per cent of children in Camden are now privately educated. It is not to do with lack of children, it’s to do with a lack of working-class children.

“Will this be yet another private school? Is there a plan to get rid of this land to a private school, or will it be more unaffordable housing?”

The school’s chair of governors Margaret Harvey confirmed that space in the former St Aloysius Primary School in Somers Town was being rented out to an unnamed private school provider.

The meeting heard it was too early to say what would happen to the St Dominic’s site if it was closed but that the land was owned by the Diocese of Westminster and there was no covenant protecting it for future education uses.

Private school providers are looking to expand in Camden following the surge in residents who can afford to pay for education. On the downside, the kind of drop off in pupil numbers at St Dominic’s – 89 of its 201 places were empty at the start of term – can prove fatal because state school funding is based on admissions numbers.

Tumi Bamgbose and her daughter

The meeting heard that St Dominic’s would be in deficit by next year having exhausted its reserves.

Several staff will be made redundant if the closure is approved.

Emma Wiener, a senior youth worker, told the council officer on the panel: “Parents are having to move out because they can no longer afford to live in Camden. When your community investment programmes are not community-based, this is what happens.

“Camden should be doing something to encourage people to stay here – because at the moment, if you can’t afford it you’re out.”

A consultation on whether St Dominic’s will close next year or not has been described as a “sham” by parents, with no other option to closure being presented by the Diocese of Westminster.

More than 900 people have signed a petition against the closure but few expect it to make any difference.

Parent Tumi Bamgbose told the meeting: “This is not a good example for parents who want to go to a faith school. This has affected my in a lot of ways. There is no school close to me. I don’t feel like taking my child to St Patrick’s because I don’t know what is going to happen in the future.

“I can’t move forward, I don’t know what is going to happen next. It has affected our life. It is not nice for our mental health. For our children it is not good.”

Father Michael Dunne, who chairs the Diocese of Education Commission, said: “The government, the council, the cardinal and the diocese would all want this school to stay open. We fight against it with everything we have.”

Gospel Oak councillor Marcus Boyland, the council’s schools chief, said he would give a “copper-bottom guarantee” that parents who moved would get help paying for new uniforms, but added that he did not have a “magic wand”.

St Dominic’s

The meeting heard the governing body did not have a parent rep since a mother had resigned having had to take her child out of school. The former governor was just one of around 40 children to leave the school in the past fortnight.

A council official told the meeting the school would stay open until the end of the year “even if there are only five children”.

A booklet provided to the meeting said it is proposed that the school would formally close from September 2023 but all pupils “will be guaran­teed the continuation of their education within a Camden School.”