Home design school for girls is set to close for safety concerns, its administrators say.
The National Home Design Education Association (NDEA) said in a statement that it has received a letter from the Department for Education (DfE) to advise it that the school, which opened in September 2016, has no longer been able to take part in a programme to promote the use of homes as homes.
“We believe this has been a very difficult decision,” the NDEA said.
“The school is currently at the stage where it cannot continue its training programme because it has no formal contract with DfE and has to do the work for free.”
It added that the organisation is now in discussions with other educational institutions who have similar training programmes.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DMG) said it is “appalled” that the NREA would “distract from the serious work” of the schools training.
“It is wrong for a school to exclude a programme for its students because it is against its ethos to have a training programme which aims to promote its use of traditional architecture, which has been one of its central tenets since the 1930s,” a spokesman said.
The NDEAs guidance comes a day after the National Archives released a letter sent to DfD from the organisation which it said showed it had no formal contracts with Dfe and that there were no plans to work with the DfEs scheme to promote home design.
The letter said it was “unacceptable” that it was not working with DFE on the project.
The DfEd’s Office of Education, Skills and Skills (IESSE) said there was no need for it to take the issue further.”IESA is currently investigating and will take any further action that it deems appropriate,” the IESSE said.
