New school delay in Preston explained

Plans to develop a new secondary school in Preston were held up for a year by a delay in handing back a small plot of land – temporarily acquired for a roadbuilding project – to its original owner, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) can reveal.

Lancashire County Council said last October that a site in Higher Bartle would be its preferred location for the long-awaited 600-pupil facility – if it could be acquired soon enough to ensure the school, which has since been put on hold until at least the early 2030s, would be ready for what was then a planned September 2027 opening.

Three missed deadlines for a decision followed over the next 12 months, during which the authority – which was run by the Conservatives until May this year and has since been controlled by Reform UK – repeatedly stressed that the main roadblock to its plans was that it did not yet have control of the site where the school was to be built.

Politicians said that meant the authority was unable to get unfettered access to the land in order to undertake the assessments needed to confirm that the plot was suitable for the education development.   It also prevented the county council from ditching a fallback option of constructing the new establishment on the former site of Tulketh High School, in Ingol, which closed down 17 years ago.

The Higher Bartle plot – known as Maxy Lane Farm, which sits between Sandy Lane and Tabley Lane – was reserved for a secondary school within an estate of 320 houses to be constructed by Taylor Wimpey and Bloor Homes.

That scheme was granted outline planning permission by Preston City Council in January 2022, but the finer details were not approved until October 2024 – the point at which County Hall confirmed its preference for Higher Bartle as the location for the new school.

However, the LDRS understands that the delay in acquiring the school land can be traced back to the county council’s own door.

The authority has been waiting for the housebuilders to purchase the overall plot for their residential development – and then to transfer the section of it earmarked for a school to the council’s control.

However, it is believed that the developers have been unable to complete the acquisition, because they needed Lancashire County Council first to return to its previous owner a parcel of land it compulsorily purchased for use during construction of the East-West Link Road  – now known as William Young Way – which opened in July 2023.

It was only once that process was complete that Taylor Wimpey and Bloor Homes would be able to purchase the overall site.

The LDRS can reveal that the county council has now struck an agreement over the land it had to hand back – a milestone that should have lifted the millstone holding up the school scheme.

However, the move only came after the authority’s cabinet agreed earlier this month to pause delivery of the project altogether – until at least 2031 – judging that there would not be enough pupils to sustain a new school at this stage.  The authority will instead pursue expansions of existing school facilities in order to meet the demand for additional places arising from new housing in North West Preston.

When approached by the LDRS about the land transfer delay, Lancashire County Council’s cabinet member for education and skills, Matthew Salter, said:  “We’ve been working hard to support progress on the land north of Maxy Lane Farm, which remains a potential location for a new secondary school in North Preston.

“At present, pupil forecasts show there isn’t sufficient demand to justify building a new school. As such, we’re pursuing interim expansion options at existing secondary schools to address the current shortfall in places, as agreed by cabinet in October.

“We’re continuing due diligence at the Maxy Lane Farm site and have now reached a land transfer agreement for a small parcel of land, enabling the main site to pass to developers Taylor Wimpey and Bloor Homes. This is a key step, but the reality is the site is not yet in our ownership – and full feasibility studies cannot be carried out until it is.

“In the meantime, we’ll continue working to bring the site into our ownership, for educational use, if or when that might be appropriate.”

A spokesperson for Taylor Wimpey and Bloor Homes said of the situation:  “Taylor Wimpey and Bloor Homes are in the process of acquiring the land situated on Tabley Lane in Higher Bartle.

“Once the land purchase is complete, Lancashire County Council will need to notify Taylor Wimpey and Bloor Homes if they require the transfer of land for the proposed secondary school.”

A masterplan for the development of North West Preston, drawn up by Preston City Council in 2017, stated that the 5,500 new homes it was planned to build over the following two decades would require a new secondary school and two new primaries in the area.

Land has been reserved for all three facilities as part of planning permissions for individual housing developments, but none has yet been delivered – although Lancashire County Council, in its capacity as the local education authority, has approved a new primary school in Whittingham, albeit beyond the masterplan area’s borders.

The Liberal Democrat group leader at County Hall, John Potter – who represents the Preston West division – says he first raised concerns over a shortage of school places in the northern and western parts of the city seven years ago.

He also claimed earlier this year that a land transfer hold-up of the kind now confirmed by the LDRS lay behind the lack of progress on the secondary school site.

Reacting to that confirmation – and the now indefinite postponement of plans to deliver the facility – he accused the county council of “rehashing the same mistakes again and again” and letting down residents who had moved to North West Preston.

“I know several families who will move out of the area now they know the school’s not coming – and I feel so sorry for [anyone] that has bought a house here thinking that they were going to get a school and now they’re not.

“The most important people here – the families – seem to have been forgotten about,” County Cllr Potter said.

Meanwhile, Aidy Riggott – leader of the Conservative group on the authority and the economic development cabinet member in the last Conservative administration, when plans for the new secondary school first started being formulated in October 2022 – told the LDRS that he was “completely unaware of the need to return previously compulsorily purchased land”.

“This detail was never shared with cabinet – not in the formal public-facing meetings, nor in private briefing sessions.

“We all look forward to prompt progress on this and ensuring Preston and its residents get the school places it needs, in the right places – and it is critical that the Reform administration deliver on these commitments.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?    

Lancashire County Council cabinet members have now agreed to meet the “immediate need” for school places in Preston by expanding existing schools rather than building a new one.

The meeting at which the matter was discussed earlier this month heard that several schools – all rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted – had come forward to help bridge the gap in provision, but have not yet been publicly identified.

The authority forecasts that Preston will be two forms – or classes – short of secondary school places by next year.

That number is well below the four forms of entry that Department for Education guidance says are required in order to make a new school financially viable.

However, the gap in Preston does rise close to that level, at 3.5 forms, just 12 months later, in the 2027/28 academic year – when it had previously been intended that the new school would open.

The county council has resolved to continue to carry out “due diligence” on both the Maxy Lane Farm and former Tulketh High sites in order to keep “the option of a new school available to us in the future, if required”.

Even after the planned school expansions, a further 1.5 forms of entry are nevertheless still predicted to be required in Preston by 2031 – again, elow the sustainability level for a new establishment, meaning the same quandary could reoccur for education bosses at the start of the next decade.

However, if housing development progresses at the rate expected, a total of eight new forms – above today’s level – will be required by 2035.

If a new school is ultimately needed, the choice between Higher Bartle and the old Tulketh High – which are 1.5 miles apart – is likely to be a tough one.

Cabinet members were told that they are the only available sites in Preston for that purpose – and that neither is perfect. The former Tulketh High plot proved unpopular when a public consultation into its potential resurrection was carried out almost three years ago – and concerns have been raised over highways and transport issues.

Maxy Lane Farm, while more aligned with the location envisaged in the masterplan to serve the new housing, is an unknown quantity in terms of ground conditions until tests can be carried out once full access is secured.

CROSS-COUNCIL SCHOOLS SPAT

County Cllr Potter told the cabinet gathering that residents in North West Preston were owed an apology, because a scheme designed to ensure new houses in the area were accompanied by the necessary services had failed to deliver one of the most important – a new secondary school.

The £434m Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire City Deal, agreed between the government and the area’s local authorities in 2013, was intended to bring forward the infrastructure needed to support the creation of more than 17,000 homes and 20,000 jobs across Central Lancashire.

County Cllr Potter has previously claimed that success in delivering new roads like the Penwortham and Broughton bypasses – and the Preston Western Distributor, linking the A583 with the M55 – had come at the expense of school projects.   The bill for the Preston Western Distributor, now known as Edith Rigby Way, more than doubled from initial estimates, eventually coming in at £207m when it was completed in 2023.

The Lib Dem said residents were “lied to” about the prospect of City Deal delivering schools and urged County Cllr Salter – a former Conservative backbencher in the previous administration from 2018 until earlier this year  – to admit the decision mothball the new secondary facility until the 2030s was “about money” and had “nothing to do with [the need for] school places”.

County Cllr Salter acknowledged that the issue was of “real concern to residents, businesses and communities”, but said he would have to “push back” on accusations of lying.

He added:  “The county council officers…have always acted in good faith, they have responded to changing circumstances, evolving forecasts [and] significant external factors – we’ve had the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on…housing development and pupil demand.”

The cabinet member stressed that existing schools have previously been expanded to provide extra places in Preston as the need for them arose.

County Cllr Salter also took a swipe at Labour-run Preston City Council over the part he said it had to play in helping deliver new schools in the area.

He said there had been “challenges” in getting the city authority to secure from developers – as part of the planning process – the contributions to education costs that had been requested by the county council.

“For instance…in May of 2023, [when] the county council officers said clearly that we needed…£1.6m of contribution to secondary school education [from a proposed housing estate]…the city council decided to seek zero pounds and zero pence towards education,” he said.

As the LDRS reported at the time, that decision came after consideration of an application by Wain Homes to build 400 houses in Lower Bartle, which the developer had argued would not be financially viable if had to meet commitments to funding school places and providing a certain level of affordable housing – although it did ultimately agree to the latter after a lengthy negotiation.

Planning authorities have to consider so-called viability assessments which are often put forward by housebuilders in an attempt to demonstrate that they cannot afford to make payments that would otherwise have been demanded in order for a planning application to be approved.     Those assessments are usually independently scrutinised on behalf of the city council before the authority decides whether or not to accept them.

County Cllr Salter also suggested that if the city council “had been more proactive in working with the county council in holding developers to account” over land transfers, the county authority “may have been in a different position”.

In response to the comments, a spokesperson for Preston City Council told the LDRS: “[We have] worked hard to secure land from developers for the delivery of two primary schools and one high school within the North West Preston area – and this land is safeguarded for the future delivery of education provision.”