Councillors aren't happy
Two new schools planned for Preston will be built in the wrong part of the city if they go ahead in their current form, councillors have warned.
Councillors have told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that those sites would be more suitable for new schools, because they lie closer to where many of the pupils who will attend them actually live – and so would cut down the need for them to travel. Trevor Hart, Ingol and Cottam ward councillor on the city authority, said he could not understand why those two previously eyed locations were not being put forward as the “preferred options” in the county council’s public consultation.
“It doesn’t make sense not to put [a new school] in the heart of the area it’s serving, but on the edge of another area that’s already got a school and one that’s looking to expand,” Cllr Hart added. A consultation into a second new Preston primary school – in the Goosnargh and Grimsargh with Longridge place planning areas – was also approved. The LDRS understands that that process will begin early in the new year, with the results of all three new school consultations being brought back to cabinet in April 2023.
Lancashire County Council told the LDRS that its control of the two plots was key in its decision to consult over their use for new schools. “New housing means that many more families are moving into these areas. We are expanding existing schools to meet the demands over the next few years, but many more places are needed from 2025. New schools are the only way we can provide these.
Meanwhile, County Cllr Potter – who last year called for housebuilding to be halted in the North West Preston area if the promised infrastructure to accompany it did not begin to materialise – said that he was pleased that progress was finally being made in the process to establish new schools, but he added:
New planning applications would be required for those parts of the Higher Bartle sites reserved for schools if proposals for alternative uses were ever brought forward.
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