Plans to expand Wilmslow High School approved

by Lisa Reeves

Tuesday 7^th April 2020

Tue 7^th Apr 2020

Plans to expand Wilmslow High School at a cost of £12m to meet the need for additional secondary school places in Wilmslow have been approved

The Council can now proceed with its plans to expand the High School from 1500 to 1800 pupil places which will see the number of places for each year group from Year 7 to year 11 increase from 300 to 360 places from September 2023.

The decision was set to be taken at a meeting of the School Organisation Sub-Committee but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the meeting was been cancelled and the Council used its decision making powers to enable the decision to be taken by the relevant Portfolio Holder.

The Local Authority's proposal was approval by Councillor Kathryn Flavell, Portfolio Holder Children and Families on Monday, 6th April.

The reason for the decision is that "The commendation is made on the basis of the publication of a public notice and the outcomes of the subsequent statutory 4 week representation period."

The latest pupil forecasts, based on the October 2018 census data indicate an increasing shortfall which will rise to 425 places across Years 7 to 11 by 2025.

A spokesperson for Cheshire East Council said "The local authority and the school are aware that the proposed increase does not appear to completely remove the indicated shortfall. However, it will allow some flexibility to monitor the housing developments and respond to changes in provision as required. In addition it is acknowledge that this is an area where a number of pupils choose to attend independent schools although initially may apply for a place at the school but later decline the place offered."

Tags:: Wilmslow High School

Comments

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Eric Butterworth

Wednesday 8^th April 2020 at 7:37 pm

It’s good that Wilmslow High School are expanding , but the powers that be, continue to bury their heads in the sand with regard to parking in the local area , six formers , out of towners , and staff continue to park , and will continue to park in Leaside way and Glenside Drive , and the situation will now be exacerbated by the double yellow lines recently placed in the town Centre , those who have parked there will continue to seek out areas where they can park without paying , thus causing a nuisance to us residents who live near to the school . The answer to the problem is simple , apply restrictions to our roads , as Rod Menlove managed to achieve when he lived nearby causing the parking problem to overspill to our area ! We need something done to deter all day , double Parker’s before a serious situation occurs and emergency vehicles cannot get through to our properties !!!!

Sue Lewis

Thursday 9^th April 2020 at 9:15 am

Wonderful - and has anyone at all who was involved in this decision, given a thought to the long suffering local residents who have to put up with the log jam of cars on what were once relatively quiet residential streets, morning and afternoon, not to mention the contining increase of litter and waste which is regularly stuffed into nearby hedges or just chucked onto the pavements rather than into the (few) bins provided.

Jon Williams

Thursday 9^th April 2020 at 10:11 am

When I was at school in Glossop, in the 70s the school had about 1000 children, what happend - They built another school a couple of miles away in the 80s.

Thank heavens for good forward thinking councils in Derbyshire

Simon Worthington

Thursday 9^th April 2020 at 11:48 am

Shocking decision. Why the lie about 1500 pupils? Why is the sixth form not counted? Somewhere around 2250 is the current number on the site not including staff. Another bottomless pit for the taxpayer!!
£12 MILLION!!!!!!!!!! that's £40,000 per place. I thought the cost of a new school in Handforth was put at £8 Million

Pete Taylor

Thursday 9^th April 2020 at 3:58 pm

Judging by the prior debate, both here and elsewhere, this is a very unpopular decision; going against the wishes of almost everyone who has commented publicly. I thought that I would see who the School Organisation Sub-Committe are and where they live.
The Cheshire East website does not give an answer, in fact there are no names and the links seem to be broken. According to the website the Sub-Committee has not met since 21 April 2017 (two subsequent meetings having been cancelled). See here: https://bit.ly/2y050iP

All pages for other Committees seem to be working, names of members and details of meetings coming up instantly.

Was this decision actually taken by the Portfolio Holder alone? As she lives in Sandbach, is she actually aware of the difficult situation which already exists and what were the reasons behind the decision taken?

Perhaps our Local Councillors could have a look at the website and get someone to fix it?

Roger Bagguley

Thursday 9^th April 2020 at 6:44 pm

As anticipated this expansion is approved and as anticipated it is not going down well with residents who will have further nuisance foisted upon them. All down to growth without infrastructure or at least based upon inaccurate data. It is absolutely now necessary for CEC Education to get real in discussion with Stockport and Greater Manchester modelling a joint authority new school based upon the number of pupils anticipated to be coming with their Local Plans. If this is not possible then it is time to rethink the use of the land allocated to the Royal London development and adopt the ideas put forward on numerous occasions by Residents of Wilmslow (RoW). These will allow for further on site expansion, at the same time solving the access problem and reducing the nuisance brought to neighbours.