Hasmonean High School parents have been urged to lobby Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to allow a rebuidling plan that was originally rejected three years ago. 

Under the scheme, the boys’ school in Hendon would relocate to a new site next to a renovated girls’ campus in Mill Hill, enabling the two schools to increase their annual combined intake from around 180 to 210. 

But after the plan was narrowly approved by Barnet Council, the Mayor’s Office called for revision over concern about the use of Green Belt land. 

In a letter to parents, Barry Ackerman, a trustee of the building committee of the Jewish Secondary Schools Movement – the religious authority for the two secondary schools – and Daniel Green, a trustee of the Hasmonean Multi-Academy Trust, explained that they had sought a compromise. 

The solution meant that the girls’ school would have to be relocated off site for some three years, they said, whereas the original proposal avoided that need. 

“We have tried for some time to enable this potential relocation.  This has proved extremely challenging and now, with the additional health and safety issues resulting from Covid, we believe it near impossible,” they said. 

“Now is the time to show our disappointment in this quite unnecessary and, in our view, ill-conceived intervention to prevent Hasmonean Boys from finally - after some 40 years - relocating to ‘fit for purpose’ premises which will enable increased numbers to attend together with the economic and teaching benefits of a single campus.   

“For the first time in its noble history the school is seriously considering refusing pupil admissions.” 

To show support, they asked parents to email both the Mayor and Jules Pipe, Deputy Mayor for Planning, “expressing your disappointment in this decision and requesting that he withdraws his direction letter of refusal and permits the original scheme”.