Council is set for talks after schools uproar

2:27pm Thursday 17th January 2008

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TRUCE talks over a plan to shut and merge 37 schools across the county could start as soon as tomorrow (Friday).

Communities were rallying to "Save our School" campaigns within hours of the plan becoming public.

Council leader Roger Phillips has admitted his surprise at the scale of the plan and said he urgently wanted to meet the Herefordshire Association of School Governors to "develop dialogue". That meeting could take place tommorrow.

Councillor Phillips also said initial analysis of new birthrate figures suggested the authority may have to substanstially alter its case.

The overwhelming show of opposition to the plan prompted a peace offer from the association of governors to the council.

Association chairman Steve Grist said his members were willing to work with the Local Education Authority (LEA) on a new plan - which would not include closures - as long as the present plan was dropped completely.

The LEA said the draft proposals were put out to "stimulate discussion" and it recognised the "strong contribution" that the association could make.

Thirty-seven schools, from tiny primaries to Bromyard's Queen Elizabeth Humanities College and the top-performing Fairfield High at Peterchurch, could close or merge under the plan, which would have an 18-month time-span. Other schools face big changes to admission numbers and catchment areas.

As yet, the plan has no political support within the council. It had been put together and published by the LEA as a response to projections of plummeting pupil numbers in the county - based on figures at least five years old - and the subsequent fall in funding schools have from central government.

But, this week, new figures from the Office of National Statistics contradicted the case the LEA was making. The figures show a consistent rise in the birthrate across the West Midlands.

The government will make around £80 million available to the LEA over the next three years if changes on the scale proposed are implemented successfully. That money includes the £40 million earmarked for Hereford's Wyebridge Academy project and the new Minster College at Leominster.

Under the plan, two schools would have have new homes, with Lord Scudamore Primary in Hereford going to the former Whitecross High School site and Francis Xavier RC leaving Venns Lane for the St Mary's RC High campus at Lugwardine.

The LEA is not yet offering any estimates of what it would cost to make the plan happen.

Headteachers were told of the plan during a special presentation at The Chase Hotel, Ross-on-Wye, last Thursday. Herefordshire councillors, school governors and the press were given the full details last Friday.

The National Union of Teachers said it was ready to take "all action needed" to protect teaching jobs.

Cabinet members have been aware of the plan itself but not its extent. At a meeting last month members voted to back the plan in principle but criticised its lack of detail as presented to them.

Herefordshire schools are the third lowest funded in the country.