WARRINGTON will face a shortage of places in secondary schools in four years time unless additional capacity is created.
The warning has been sounded by Cllr Jean Carter, the borough council’s lead member for children and young people’s services in response to a question asked by Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition councillor Kevin Bennett.
Cllr Bennett asked what effect the building of a University Technical
College (UTC) at Warrington would have on existing schools, given that the borough already had more than 1,000 surplus places.
Cllr Carter (pictured) said the plan for a UTC was developed in response to a skills deficit so while the borough may currently have sufficient secondary school places, the question was whether those places were offering the right curriculum to enable young people to develop the right kind of skills.
The unfilled places represented only nine per cent of total capacity, which was not a major concern.
A key point to stress was that live births and housing developments in Warrington have been on an upward trend. This had already impacted on primary schools and the council had had to extend a number of primary schools.
“As this feeds through into the secondary sector, those unfilled places will be filled,” she said.
“For example, there are currently 2,600 pupils in year 2 in primary schools, which will feed into secondary school in September 2019. This demand exceeds the total places available for them in secondary.
“This means that, in four years’ time, and unless we create additional capacity, we will have a shortfall of places in secondary. The UTC, for example, will actually contribute to alleviating some of the pressure on places in West Warrington, in addition to providing a new and exciting offer for young people.”
Artists impression of the new UTC
Town could face shortage of school places
33 Comments
3 Comments
I don’t believe it!! A few years ago the council demolished a perfectly good secondary school at Woolston – and now there going to be a shortage!!
The school was closed due to falling pupil numbers and to save money!!!
It is going to cost a lot more now!!!
This is not being immigrant unfriendly by any means, but the way we are now obviously have a large eastern european community in Warrington with alot of family members they are “entitled” to school places for their children, this is why the local children will struggle for school places.
Hardly rocket science and birth rates have always peaked and fallen so like Voctor has already said why close and knock down schools when it must be clear to the council (who plan in advance and collate info) that within a few years or so school places could be a problem especially when they keep approving new hosing developments with 100’s of new houses in the area. Aren’t 106 agreements etc supposed to contribute to local school school places and perhaps existing school enlargements or do they get more money from closing and selling school land which they say are redundant an costly and then biding their time and gaining new funding from scratch to build new as the needs arise ?