Julian Fulbrook speaking at Monday’s hustings

A LABOUR councillor told election hustings that he still wants a new secondary school to be opened south of the Euston Road – even though the pledge has gone missing from the party’s manifesto.

In 2014, Labour said it would work to “deliver” the school, while four years ago – at the last boroughwide polls – it promised to “work to make sure every child in Camden has a place at one of our schools and explore options for a school south of Euston Road”. There is no mention of further work on the idea in the new Labour manifesto, however.

A campaign that has run for decades came close to succeeding on several occasions, although momentum was lost when a site in Swiss Cottage instead of southern wards was earmarked for a new secondary school – the UCL Academy – in 2006.

Regardless of his party’s manifesto, Julian Fulbrook, the long-serving Holborn and Covent Garden councillor who is standing for re-election again next week, told hustings in Bloomsbury: “It’s a little controversial but we’d desperately like a new secondary school. At secondary school age, people are going off all across London.”

He added: “We’ve never managed to convince the officers, and we’ve never managed to convince some of our fellow colleagues from the northern parts of Camden who have the luxury of lots of local schools.”