Council to fight for more schools funding

OPPOSITION councillors at Warrington have persuaded the controlling Lib Dem-Conservative group to fight for more funding for the town’s schools.
After a stormy debate, the council agreed unanimously to press for all the town’s schools which lost out when the Building Schools for the Future programme was scrapped to have the funding restored.
The council will also ask for £1.8 million spent on preparations for BSF to be repaid by the Government.
All parties agreed on the approach after Labour’s Coun Colin Froggatt (pictured right) accused the controlling group of giving top priority to only one school – William Beamont High.
He said all the six schools originally to benefit from BSF should be given priority.
They are William Beamont High, Lysander High, Penketh High, Sir Thomas Boteler CE High, Green Lane Special School and Fox Wood Special School.
Coun Froggatt said he doubted if the council had been pressing the Government hard enough.
Coun Sheila Woodyatt pointed out that the council had already written to the education secretary, Michael Gove asking for the £1.8m it had already spent to be reimbursed.
They had also suggested that the three other high schools – Beamont, Lysander and Penketh – be used as a pilot scheme for a new, more cost effective school building programme to replace BSF.
The Warrington South MP David Mowat had also been working on the council’s behalf.
But council leader Ian Marks agreed to support a Labour motion urging the Government to reinstate BSF funding for all the affected Warrington schools.