HappyDad It was the DofE who made the decision to parachute in the sponsoring academies trust, the Aspirations Academy Trust that has been announced by the Council for the Livingstone School on the Stag Brewery site. That was clear in the Councils original announcement and it was the wording of the petition that Richard Buggs launched and has used in support of the school proposal that first made me suspicious of his agenda.
It is fairly widely known (especially if you read this thread and /or knew anything about the background to the existing free schools in the borough), and certainly easy to find out, that local Councils have lost control over any of the decision making in the Free School process and can only carry out due diligence in terms of advising the DofE of suitability to the local context (and it would be hard for the Council to argue against a sponsor of 14 schools, some outstanding and some local, though whether Richmond parents would perceive Hounslow as local is of course another matter 
). Mr Buggs is clearly not without research skills so it was at the very least disingenuous to launch a petition, subsequently used as evidence of support for a school proposal that did not actually originate in the needs of the local community, targeting the local council to provoke local support.
I completely agree that schools should be rooted in the needs of the local community, that is why a free school (Turing) was born on this thread when the Council parachuted in an exclusive Faith School to Twickenham when there was a need for inclusive places in the community. However the proposal that Mr Bugs has initiated has not emerged from the needs of the local community, there is a Faith School 1.6 miles away that is not oversubscribed for faith places and another in Twickenham that serves the local parishes for the Catholic community. The need in Mortlake, Barnes and Kew is for a school that follows the model of the other popular oversubscribed community schools like Greycourt that have always been (with one hiccup) where local parents wanted to send their children. Many parents and governors who signed the petition which did the rounds of all the primary schools, and governing bodies, now feel they were misled and have fed back their withdrawal of support and views on the true background to the proposal.
I have included lots of links further up thread but the three most active proposers Mr Buggs, the Headmaster of Fulham Boys School and the leader of the Duke Street Church are prominent and influential Christian Evangelicals with International connections to America and there is no shortage of evidence that they believe in and proselytise an agenda that is creationist, misogynist, homophobic and anti abortion. There are plenty of sermons you can listen to online from both the Duke Street Church, where Mr Buggs is a member, and delivered by the Headmaster of Fulham Boys' School at Independent Evangelical churches around the area. Mr Buggs' "scientific evidence" is used internationally as proof of creationism and that Adam and Eve are the only model and Fulham Boys' School recently hosted for a week from America, the International Outreach Director of an Evangelical organisation called the the Council for Manhood and Womanhood. I agree that most Richmond parents would be up in arms about such fundamentalism in a local school but it is happening in Fulham it seems without parental outcry? By all accounts it is an oversubscribed popular school and I can only assume Mr Ebenezer's (the Head) sailing close to the wind in terms of not promoting British values on equality etc. is tolerated by parents and politicians because they appreciate the rest of what the school delivers, or they just don't realise what is going on.
The Church of England is I gather suffering from a touch of multiple personality disorder in relation to the Evangelicals, on the one hand they are the branch of christianity that are growing their congregations, and they want some of that, on the other they are an anathema to those who support both liberal and traditional values. In that context it strikes me as revealing that having approached all the CofE parishes in the area only two signed up....
It seems to me that the Christian Evangelicals are being very strategic in proselytising (which duty is after all at the core of their beliefs) their agenda. Why do Mr Buggs et al not come out and declare their beliefs and wish to spread them, instead of employing other tactics to gain support for their school? It all seems very underhand.