Month: April 2017

The Roundhay area of Leeds has been identified as needing an additional 60 reception places (two forms of entry) to ease ongoing pressure on primary school places in the area. A free school bid from the Roundhay Park Primary School Trust has been approved by the Secretary of State for Education to provide these additional places. Finding a suitable site to establish this school on has so far been difficult. Leeds City Council, the Education Funding Agency and the Free School Trust agreed to undertake a joint consultation with all interested parties and stakeholders on 4 potential sites in the Roundhay area which had been considered by the Education Funding Agency as having potential to be brought forward for educational use. One of these sites is on a part of Roundhay Park so we feel it is right that the whole city has a say on whether it should be further considered for this purpose.

Next steps

The site plans are available within the RoundhayFreeSchoolSiteConsultation2017document, and if you wish to formally respond to the consultation you can take the survey below:

 Alternatively, you can email us at educ.school.organisation@leeds.gov.uk or write to us at Leeds City Council, Capacity Planning and Sufficiency Team, C/O Leeds Town Hall, PO Box 837, Leeds, LS1 9PZ.

 

The plans and survey questions will also be available in Leeds Civic Hall and Tropical World. There will be a drop in session where staff will be available to answer questions and discuss the consultation at the Civic Hall. Please see details of the drop in session below. This consultation will run until  midnight on Friday 12 May 2017 to enable a broad range of interested parties to express their views on the options as they are. We would encourage citizens of Leeds to share this consultation with those they may feel have an interest and would want to take part.

A further drop in session will be held from 5.00pm – 8.00 pm on Wednesday 10 May 2017 at:
Civic Hall (West Room)
Calverley Street
Leeds
LS1 1UR

Please access the building via the Portland Crescent entrance.

Get directions to Civic Hall

When will a decision be made?

The outcomes of this consultation will be passed on to the Education Funding Agency (EFA) for inclusion in their appraisal of which site(s) to consider progressing for the free school.

Any site the EFA does move forward with would need to be purchased from the current owner and also require planning permission. Issues such as planning constraints and purchase costs are covered in the attached site specific information.

Following the recent 4 week public consultation on a proposal to expand St Chads C of E Primary School, utilising a section of the West Park playing fields for sports provision/playing fields, the Abbey Trust Board has met and voted to proceed with the proposal. As many concerns were raised during the consultation regarding the location and size of the proposed playing field area, the Trust, in discussion with LCC, has suggested utilising a smaller section of West Park Playing Fields located on the Arncliffe Road side of the school site. This was also suggested by several respondents at the drop-in meetings and via response forms. This option needs to be investigated further before the proposal can progress to the next stage.

 

The next steps:

  • Children’s Services officers will go through an internal approval process
  • If approval is given, an application would need to be submitted to Fields in Trust (FiT) for a request to change use of a section of West Park playing fields (the earliest date an application could be made is mid-end of May 2017)
  • If FiT approve the proposed change, Children’s Services would need to report to the executive board of LCC for approval (if all approval stages are progressed, this would likely to be early Autumn 2017).

 

St Chads consultation summary report