Free schools trust urges parents to back Richard Desmond housing development in order to secure the future of their secondary school

The chief executive of a chain of free schools has asked parents to throw their weight behind a huge proposed new housing development being put forward by the businessman Richard Desmond, in the hope that this will provide its secondary school with a long-awaited permanent home.

Joanne Taylor, who has led Canary Wharf College Ltd in Tower Hamlets, East London, for a tumultuous 14 months, has told parents in a newsletter that the trust believes Mr Desmond’s plans provide the best route to a permanent site for Crossharbour, which is still in temporary buildings nearly eight years after opening.

The recommendation is being viewed as particularly controversial by parents who have been critical of Ms Taylor, as Mr Desmond’s previous planning application generated national headlines, and because the newsletter signposts parents towards an opinion-gathering exercise being carried out by a company which has been linked with the businessman in the past.

Meanwhile, in a further sign of the site difficulties which can blight free school projects, the same newsletter warns that Crossharbour is facing losing some of the facilities on its current site from September, as another property developer seeks permission for demolition works.

The detail

Canary Wharf College Crossharbour was established in 2016 as the third school, and the only secondary, within what is still only a three-institution chain, on the capital’s Isle of Dogs. All three schools are not far from the gleaming financial industry tower blocks with which the trust’s name is associated.