In your most recent story about the relocation of the Arbor and Rosewood schools to a residential site on Long Circular Road, Maraval, the chairman of the schools' parent body, Philip Hamel-Smith, made inaccurate claims about past use of the site.Dismissing local residents as "misguided," and their concerns as "unfounded" or "dealt with," Mr Hamel-Smith said that the proposed location of the school at 129 Long Circular Road "has since 1966 been used as institutional, having been the first home of the Cipriani Labour College, and has never been changed."
The facts are somewhat different. The site was originally the residence of the Mizrahi family, who rented their home to the Cipriani Labour ��College in October 1966, while its present facilities in Valsayn were being constructed. The Town and Country Act only came into being three years later, in 1969, and the site was never zoned or approved for institutional use as Mr Hamel-Smith assumes.
The college vacated the site in 1971, and the site reverted to private residential use, owned and occupied over more than four decades by the Schneider family, Anthony Carvalho, Margaret de Freitas, the Fernandes family, Roma Wilkinson and Monica Benn.It was sold to Karen and Anthony Alleyne in 2002.
Subsequent commercial operations did not receive a "change of use" approval for the location, and cannot be used as a precedent for renewed institutional use. This fact was confirmed in April 2014, when an advertisement was placed in the Guardian newspaper by Tao Sushi restaurant, which occupied the building until the first quarter of last year. It read as follows:
Notice to the public
Tao Sushi Foods Ltd on Friday March 14, 2014, filed a lawsuit against landlords Anthony Alleyne and Karen Alleyne of 129 Long Circular Rd, Maraval, for breach of rental contract. The landlords contractually rented a commercial building when in fact the building is residential and has never had commercial status.
Renters beware
By order of Tao Sushi owner.
Clearly the most recent commercial user of the site discovered for himself that it was legally residential. This advertisement was brought to the attention of Mr Hamel-Smith at a meeting held with residents of Lower Maraval on July 24, 2014. His response was that he was aware of it.
Mr Hamel-Smith failed to mention to your reporter two adjoining residential properties (at 131 Long Circular Road and 1 Champs Elysees Road) which the schools propose to occupy or annex as roadway and parking for teachers and visitors. Neither site has ever been commercial, the latter being a family home until August, 2014.We appreciate that Mr Hamel-Smith may be in a belligerent mood, but we ask him to confine his rhetoric to the facts.
Lower Maraval residents
Maraval