Richard Baum

At Council on Wednesday we debated a motion from the Labour Group on the Secondary School Strategy for Change. It was a stormy debate with much riding on it. Labour’s proposals put at risk £80m of government funding and also risked stopping the building of a brand new school in Radcliffe.

The Council currently proposes to move Derby High School to a brand new school in Radliffe (the former site of the East Lancashire Paper Mill). This idea has been met with opposition by the Labour group, but support from the governor’s of the Derby. The proposal would see the current Radcliffe Riverside school (on the site of the former Coney Green school now)close.

So, we move from two old schools to one brand new school. But, Radcliffe will get a new school, and a very good one at that. It will join the other parts of the borough in having a first class secondary school, and we will finally get to the end of a years-old saga which has seen Radcliffe at the centre of an educational tug of war.

There’s always a need to make sure that schools provision reflects need, both now and in the future. This concern is particularly acute now because Bury has been promised £80m of government funding in the “Building Schools for the Future” programme, to renovate and build new schools in the Borough. This will mean massive improvements to schools at Elton, Broad Oak, Bury Church and other schools in Bury. But the government have said that we can only get this money if we address the problem of having too many school places and not enough children.

One way to do this is to move Derby to Radcliffe and close Radcliffe Riverside, as the Council propose.

It’s not an ideal solution. Nobody likes closing schools, least of all local Liberal Democrats who campaigned hard and successfully to stop the proposed closure of Prestwich Arts College in 2005.

But the difference between then and now is clear. First, Radcliffe Riverside is not currently attracting pupils (only enough for about one form want to go there next year), whereas Prestwich Arts College was popular, and remains so now. Second, BSF money is on the table now, and it wasn’t then. And third, the people of Radcliffe will benefit from a brand new replacement school. This wasn’t on offer to Prestwich.

We are worried about some aspects of the Council’s plan. In particular what happens to Radcliffe children between when Riverside is close and when the new school is finished (potentially five years away). They won’t have a school in their town, and this is a big concern. We need to make sure that any interim solution bears their needs in mind.

We’re also worried about the children who currently go to the Derby and how a move into Radcliffe for that school will affect those families in the long term. However, it is quite feasible that no child who goes to the Derby now will still be at the school when it moves. And we are mindful that other Bury town schools - Elton, Broad Oak and Bury Church are all being rebuilt or refurbished with the new BSF money that this scheme will bring to Bury.

We appreciate the points that Labour made in their motion. But they aren’t as valid as the proposals which will see a new School in Radcliffe and a once in a lifetime cash injection of £80 million into our local schools. So we couldn’t support their motion which would’ve stopped both of these things.

Their motion called for two new schools instead, but there aren’t enough children to fill them, we’d be losing the £80m, and there’s no mention of how they’d be paid for otherwise.

It’s a shame that the plan going forward isn’t perfect. But it’s the least bad option available and that’s why we supported it.

Rick