School closure to be confirmed?

TOWN Hall chiefs at Warrington will again be urged to approve the closure of Longbarn Primary School when they meet next week.
A recommendation will go to members of the borough council’s executive board on Monday that they approve the issue of a statutory notice to close the school from August 31 next year.
This follows a detail study of a recommendation by the council’s overview and scrutiny committee that the board reconsider its earlier decision.
A report to be considered by the board on Monday sets out the scrutiny committee’s reasons for “calling in” the original decision.
These were that the decision had not been taken with enough “openness”, that it lacked clarity of aims and desired outcomes, that financial implications had not been given due consideration and that alternative options were not considered.
But the report, by strategic director of Children’s Services Kath O’Dwyer (pictured), responds to each issue – and disputes many of them.
A suggestion that Longbarn is a high performing school in a deprived area is roundly challenged.
In fact, Longbarn is judged by Ofsted to be only “satisfactory” and it not, relatively, in a deprived area compared with other schools in the area, or Warrington generally.
Another suggestion, that the school delivers a broad range of community activity, is also challenged. In fact, the school only delivers a modest programme of activity, the report claims.
Claims that the closure will lead to increased road congestion are disputed on the grounds that the majority of pupils actually live closer to Christ Church CE Primary than to Longbarn so will have shorter distances to travel.
The report says at least £154,000 a year will be saved as a result of the closure. In addition, essential modernisation of the school will not be necessary.
But the main reason for recommending closure remains continuing low parental preference for the school.
Longbarn is the smallest school in Warrington with only 79 pupils from May this year – a number expected to fall still further from this month. At the beginning of the year it had 41 per cent surplus places and the Government expected the council to show effective management of surplus places if it was to have access to funding of £44 million for spending on primary schools.