This month marks 10 years since the official closure of The Royal School for Deaf Children in Margate.
It was shut down suddenly in December 2015 after The John Townsend Trust, which ran it, went into administration.
The distressing closure of the school and Westgate College resulted in some 500 job losses and scores of children left without a specialist school placement.
The CQC had ordered the trust to shut down residential accommodation attached to the college with 38 residents aged 19 to 22 being moved to alternative facilities after the revelation of physical abuse incidents.
The Royal School for the Deaf in Margate was the oldest in the country and began as a London institution founded in 1792.
It opened a Margate branch in 1876 for sea air, with the entire school relocating there by 1905, becoming a significant centre for deaf education until its closure.
It gained the prefix ‘Royal’ in 1901 . The Margate site featured around 120,000 sq ft of school buildings, including former student housing.
The Gothic-style building housed the school, with parts demolished and rebuilt, but the site held significant memories, including a tower climbed by students as a rite of passage, says History of Place and the British Deaf History Society.
A petition to save the school exceeded 22,000 signatures.
More than 50 of the 150 children and young people affected were left without new placements when it shut.
Administrators had decided that the school and college would have to be closed immediately “following a detailed assessment of the financial and operational position.”
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) later revealed it took action at the residential Westgate college for deaf people – run by the same trust- over allegations of abuse and that residents were moved for their protection.
The school was not involved in the CQC action, but parents were told it had been closed for good after their children had returned home on Friday 11 December.
In 2017 Kent County Council agreed to buy the site with plans for a new secondary school to be built there.
This plan was ditched in 2019 with KCC saying it wanted to expand existing schools in Thanet including Ursuline College and King Ethelbert’s School and a temporary expansion at the Royal Harbour Academy in Ramsgate.
However KCC had to gain permission for the decision to be reversed from the Department for Education and this was refused.
The sale to KCC was finalised in 202, with the authority paying £6.8m (exclusive of VAT) for the land.
Plans then were revealed for Park Crescent Academy, sponsored by The Howard Academy Trust, but this was once again shelved in 2021.
In 2022, KCC put the site forward put forward for a potential 200 home development as part of Thanet council’s Local Plan review.
In February this year, a project exploring the history of the Royal School for Deaf Children was awarded £24,300 from Historic England.
The task was carried out by people from deaf organisations alongside disabled-led arts and heritage production company 104 Projects to produce oral histories and a documentary film.
In June property company Square Bay/ Geronimo Estates held a public exhibition and consultation over plans to build 150 properties at site.
The company completed a purchase of the 14 acre plot from Kent County Council in February.
No updated details have been added to Land Registry for the sale to Geronimo Estates.
However, the developer borrowed £3.6m from Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited, creating a charge on the deaf school land.
A planning application for 150 properties on the site was submitted in September. A petition of objection has been submitted with 48 signatures and residents staged a protest.
Among the concerns is that only 10% affordable housing – equalling 15 homes- is proposed rather than the standard 30%.
A decision on the application has not yet been made. Documents can be viewed on Thanet council’s planning portal, reference OL/TH/25/0996.
