Home builder challenges council’s demand to pay £546,000 for school places

THERE ARE fears schools in the Holme Valley could be denied more than £500,000 in funding after a house builder challenged the need to support school places in the area.

Wakefield-based Miller Homes wants to build 146 houses on land off Woodhead Road in

Brockholes, near Huddersfield. But the company says it should not have to pay more than £500,000 to Brockholes Junior and Infant School and Honley High School to create extra places as there is a surplus at other nearby schools.

The cash is known as Section 106 or S106 money. It is used for improvements and infrastructure such as GP surgeries and highways, as well as school places.

Local independent councillors have slammed the move as “disgraceful”.

Kirklees Council says Brockholes

J&I School should receive £303,236 with Honley High School getting £242,901 – a total of £546,137 – to fund the extra places that will be needed at both.

But Miller Homes has commissioned a detailed 12-page report that indicates surplus places exist at neighbouring schools that are within the two and three-mile statutory walking distances of the development site.

It says those walking distances are enshrined in law and that Kirklees Council is wrong to claim otherwise.

Consultant Heather Knowler says: “The position is simply that the council does not employ the walking distances as part of its assessment of need for development contributions.”

Coun Charles Greaves, lead member for the Holme Valley North Independents, said: “Regardless of how you feel about new developments, most people agree that developers should help to fund the infrastructure and services that their new development will make use of.”

His ward colleague, Coun Terry Lyons, said: “This is disgraceful. It will not just affect this development.”