Fresh delay on new school decision

Another deadline by which a decision was due to be made on where to build a new secondary school in Preston is to be missed.

Lancashire County Council said in July that it expected cabinet members would be asked at a meeting next month to make a final choice between two sites that have been in the running for almost a year.

However, the subject is absent from the agenda that has now been published for that gathering, on 4th September.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) understands the authority now expects that the matter will be considered in October – more than six months after the passing of what was previously presented as a crucial cut-off point.

County Hall education bosses have been trying to decide whether to recommend to cabinet that the new 600-pupil facility is built on land between Sandy Lane and Tabley Lane in Higher Bartle or the former site of Tulketh High School, on Tag Lane, in Ingol.

The previous Conservative administration had identified the former as their preferred option, but delays over acquiring the plot meant they were keeping the latter in reserve as a plan B.

The Tories set a deadline of “late Match” by which a decision needed to be reached in order for the new school to be ready by its target opening date of September 2027, when the additional places were expected to be required as a result of ongoing housing expansion in North West Preston.

However, that date came and went and the party lost power in May’s local elections when it was ousted by Reform UK.

When questioned over the still outstanding decision during a full council meeting in July, the new cabinet member for education and skills, Matthew Salter, said the issue needed to be mulled over “soberly [and] carefully” – and indicated the process would be complete in time for the September cabinet meeting.

He said county council officers were “very comfortable” that the new school places could be delivered on time in that scenario. However, he had also explained at the last cabinet update on the subject, earlier in July, that the new facility might not be needed until September 2028 if “temporary works” were carried out at other secondary schools in the vicinity “to manage demand for places”- and warned that that neither location was “entirely suitable or ideal”.

The LDRS has approached the county council for comment on the latest delay.

John Potter, the Liberal Democrat county councillor for Preston West – who is in favour of the Higher Battle site option and repeatedly criticised the Tories when they were in office for not having concluded the matter sooner – said of the new hold-up: “It looks like Reform has picked up the former Conservative administration’s habit of promising a new school decision, but delaying it over and over again.

“They are now saying it will be October – but, worryingly, they haven’t said which year.”

Meanwhile, rival petitions in support of each site – set up using the county council’s own e-petition system after it was suggested a final decision would be made in September – have now closed.

The Higher Bartle plot won the support of 750 people – more than four times as many as the 153 who backed building a new school where Tulketh High once stood.

The public’s favoured option has been reserved for a secondary school since January 2022, when planning permission was granted for it within a yet-to-be-built estate of 320 homes.

But after delays in the land coming into the county council’s control – for reasons that have never been publicly explained in detail – the authority began to explore the possibility of resurrecting the Tulketh High site, which was last in operation as a school back in 2008.

However, a public consultation into that plan, held almost three years ago, resulted in such negative feedback that the authority went back to the drawing board.

It then announced last October that the Higher Bartle site may yet be an option if it could be secured by the turn of the year – and so began the series of deadlines for a decision on the location of the new school, none of which has yet been hit.