Calls for support in Preston schools ahead of new year after far-right riots

A Preston councillor is calling for more support for schools with the new academic year set to begin in the shadow of the far-right riots witnessed across England during the summer holidays.

While Preston itself was largely spared the scenes seen elsewhere, Plungington representative Pav Akhtar fears racists will be “emboldened” by the events.

He says Muslim staff, parents and pupils across the city have spoken of fears for children’s safety when they return to class next week.

Cllr Akhtar expressed particular concern about Eldon Primary School – in his own ward – whose staff, he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), had been subject to racist abuse long before the flare-ups that followed the Southport attacks in which three young girls were killed.

He had been intending to highlight the issue in a ‘notice of motion’ during a meeting of Preston City Council last week, but procedural issues meant the matter could not be debated.

However, he made a separate call for the authority to “pressure” Lancashire County Council Into providing support – of which he claimed there had been “zero” – to Preston schools with large proportions of staff and pupils from ethnic minority or migrant heritage backgrounds.

“People are terrified about going back to school,” Cllr Akhtar told the meeting.

“There is a lack of racial literacy, it feels, sometimes in public institutions, where they see racial attacks [that] happen…one day – and then everyone moves on the next. It doesn’t work that way.”

He added that the riots had not happened “out of nowhere or in a vacuum”, but because of a “years-long and systematic denigration of BME [black and minority ethnic] communities, of immigrants and…the Muslim faith, [which] led to the far-right being able to capitalise on the awful incident in Southport”.

The motion, seen by the LDRS, would have been supported by nine other councillors across six wards – Plungington, Deepdale, Garrison, City Centre, St Matthew’s, and Fishwick and Frenchwood – and was to call on the county council to “urgently review school risk assessments and update safety plans” ahead of the start of the new term.

It also pressed County Hall to work with schools, parents, councillors and the police “to address the anxiety children and adults have for their safety at school”.

At Eldon primary, it was claimed, staff have faced two years of “online and in-person abuse” – including “racist and sexist vitriol against its female leaders and Asian Muslim headteacher” – which included the smashing of a home window and a car tyre being slashed.

Responding to the concerns raised, a spokesperson for Lancashire County Council told the LDRS the authority was “committed to supporting all our schools and ensuring they are able to deliver the best quality education possible”.

They added: “During the summer holidays, we have been working with schools across Lancashire to make sure they are prepared for pupils returning at the start of term and to establish if any extra help and support is required in light of the events which happened in Southport.”

The LDRS understands that the Lancashire Police and Crime Commissioner has also been engaged over the issue.

Plungington councillors – who represent one of the most deprived areas of Preston – will hold monthly surgeries at Eldon Primary from September in recognition of what the motion had described as the “social factors behind some poor behaviours”.

At the city council meeting where Cllr Akhtar highlighted the broader matter – in a Q&A with cabinet members – the portfolio holder for communities and social justice, Nweeda Khan, said she was once again making the case for the county council, of which she is also a member, to roll out anti-racism programmes.

“There [were] a number of young people…between the ages of 11 and 16 that were protesting [during the summer], so there is a…definite need, through education, through our schools, [to] raise greater awareness,” Cllr Khan added.

She highlighted the Heartstone project – designed to challenge prejudice, intolerance and hate – with which the city authority has previously been involved in delivering in Preston.

Meanwhile, city council leader Matthew Brown said the “evils of racism” had to be challenged “at every level”.

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