Meeting with The Hindu Fellowship, the new owners of the ex-Old Palace School site on the 14th March 2025.
A few of us met with one of trustees and some of the local members of the fellowship to hear their plans for the site.
They intend to use all bar The Limes as a Sunday school and they are in discussions with Croydon Council to let out The Limes as a special needs school to an independent organisation.
The Limes is the part of the site at the top of Ballater. When the site was Croham Hurst School, The Limes was the junior school.
The Fellowship said there would be about 100 children each Sunday at the Sunday school and about the same number of parents. They were attracted to the site as the sports facilities would help them provide a more varied day for the children.
They were looking to increase parking on the site but wanted to retain all the sports facilities and the classrooms and will be starting discussions with Croydon Council soon.
Apart from two or three events during Diwali there would be no religious celebrations at the site.
The Fellowship also run a school in Chigwell. This will be their second school in London. They are looking for the site to be used by the local community on a non-commercial basis as much as possible with the caveat that any visitors to the site must respect their views on alcohol and diet. This seems very reasonable.
Overall we were very happy with their initial plans. There woul be a follow up meeting in about six months when they had progressed their plans.
The Fellowship pointed out that the Whitgift Foundation spent a considerable amount of time vetting them during the sale process. We thank the Foundation for finding such suitable new owners.
