Plans for city school expansion backed despite cost concerns
COUNCILLORS HAVE agreed to spend more than £5m on controversial plans to expand a primary school in North Leeds.
Moor Allerton Hall School’s proposed 200-place expansion was approved by council decision-makers last year, despite warnings from its own schools advisory board that such changes would be “risky”.
But, following suggestions from opposition councillors that the scheme was facing “spiralling costs”, the council’s executive board continued to give its backing to the plans, with the authority’s lead member for education, Coun Jonathan Pryor, claiming the scheme could save money.
Leeds City Council faces a shortage of places in parts of North Leeds, and it needs to create more of them. Plans put to the council last year involve increasing the capacity from 420 pupils to 630 pupils over a number of years, with each intake rising from 60 to 90 pupils. The changes are planned to come in at the beginning of the next school year.
Meanwhile, plans to re-build a school in Leeds to help cater for rising demand for pupil places have been approved. Initial plans for a £20m-plus revamp of Benton Park Secondary School in Rawdon in the north of the city –
which would eventually increase the number of students from 1,225 to 1,500 – went before the executive committee.
Liberal Democrat councillor Stewart Golton welcomed the announcement, but also asked when improvements would be made to Royds and Wetherby high schools, which Coun Pryor had warned this month needed extra funding.
Yesterday, Coun Pryor said: “The coalition (Government) cancelled the Building Schools for the Future programme. (The current Government) is massively under-funding these schools, but we are looking for solutions and we want the government to take this more seriously.”