adminCold Comfort Farm is now well-developed in the sense of being subdivided into stands, most of which now have a house on them. A whole new community of Zimbabwean middle income home owners has grown up over the last few years.
It is clear that the presence of the school, on a large site for a primary school, was a critical factor when families decided to buy stands and start building. It must also have been a critical factor when the city planners allowed the development without another school being added.
Cold Comfort Farm, or suburb as it probably should now be called, is a long thin area, running around 3km north and south but less than 750m wide.
It is separated from Kuwadzana in the west and Warren Park in the east by two large open areas and access roads are near the northern boundary and along the southern boundary; it is not easy to move from Cold Comfort to the neighbouring suburbs without making a dangerous journey through the bush or walking or driving several kilometres.
In any case Kuwazana 1 and Warren Park 4, the two nearest “regular” schools, are well within their suburbs making a long walk even longer for Cold Comfort children.
This means that small children living in the suburb need a primary school in the suburb. It does not particularly matter if the school is on the present site, but the present site is fairly close to the centre of the suburb and any alternative school would have to be a bit further away from most families unless some of the private land to the east could be used.
Normally in such urban developments, 10 percent of the land has to be surrendered to the Government for education purposes.
We would like to know if this was a requirement at Cold Comfort, or if the existence of a school meant that it could be waived. If land was handed over it does not look as though it was well positioned.
These questions are important.
Either a new school must be built in a convenient location, or the existing school needs to become a State school through a land swop or through outright purchase. That is the only way Cold Comfort children can have a relatively inexpensive school near their homes.
The decision by Herentals College to buy the stand seems odd. There might well be a need for another commercial private school in that belt of new suburbs along Bulawayo Road, but Cold Comfort, with its bad communications and fairly modest population, does not seem the most obvious. Most pupils will have to be driven or bussed in.
The facilities at the school are, to be honest, substandard and inadequate, even for a community school, let alone a private school. Presumably the site was what attracted Herentals, who have said they have plans for dramatic development once the legal issues are sorted out.
All this seems to offer scope for a solution that allows both a reasonable State school in Cold Comfort and an opportunity for a private, although for profit, school serving those in the area who would like that option.
The city council does own land in the area, and perhaps the Government does as well if the planning provisions for education were followed to the letter.
It should be fairly simple for a land swop to be arranged, Herentals to surrender the Cold Comfort School, which would be taken over by the council or Government, and in return receive an equivalent amount of land in the area.
We cannot imagine that there can be much “adjustment” for the poor facilities already at the school.
Herentals would benefit by having a school site that was better located, and almost certainly easier for people living outside Cold Comfort to reach, while the community at Cold Comfort would have a school in probably the best location for a purely suburban school.
The law, so far as we understand it, does allow for compulsory purchases for town planning purposes, although at the full value of the land, but we think that it should be possible to organise a voluntary deal.
The Cold Comfort developers can be asked to chip in if there is a need for a cash adjustment since they seem to have skipped some of the normal planning requirements for education.
At the same time the city council must be more active in its supervisory role in planning. Large new housing developments cannot be allowed without proper planning for schools.
The old policy of setting aside 10 percent of the land might not be the best solution in all cases, but the law does allow other solutions such as the developer building more classrooms at an existing school.
Whatever the solution, we cannot have what we now see at Cold Comfort: no provision for education except a private school costs more than most parents can afford. The sort of solution we have sketched would preserve a local school, and encourage a private education investor to remain and provide a facility they think is needed.
The legal battles could continue if desired, but their result would largely be to work out who paid money to whom later. While the courts process the case, both schools could be developed for the benefit of the children who attend them.
Online Reporter