£14m government funding still available for revised shake-up of schools in Biggleswade area

A revised shake-up of future education provision in the Biggleswade area will continue to benefit from £14m of government funding, a meeting heard.

The ring-fenced housing infrastructure fund (HIF) allocation remains available, despite some significant changes to Central Bedfordshire Council’s proposals. This money “can be retained and used across the education estate to create sufficient school places,” according to a report to the local authority’s children’s services overview and scrutiny committee.

A consultation process is under way (see here) over the fresh plans for maintained schools in the Biggleswade cluster, under CBC’s Schools for the Future programme. Academy schools in the area are to follow a parallel process via the regional department for education, said the report.

The council’s executive recently backed plans for three-tier schools in the Biggleswade area to switch to two-tier from September 2024 to help raise education standards, while agreeing the statutory consultation process.

CBC’s Schools for the Future programme director Sue Archer explained: “The proposals are subject to further work, but we’re confident they can be delivered. A number of key things to have emerged are the review of population data in Biggleswade, particularly the number of secondary school places, so a significant change in this model from the last.

“Edward Peake Middle School was to be relocated to land east of the town and become a large secondary school. We decided that would create far too many surplus places locally and destabilise the position, possibly risking the financial viability of the school.

“Lawnside Academy, which was to relocate to the Edward Peake site, remains at its current location and is developed from a lower school into a primary there.

“The other key change is at Dunton and Wrestlingworth where there was concern about the viability of small schools. We suggest the best model is a split site primary school, with Wrestlingworth for the younger children and Dunton for the older pupils.”

Asked why the original forecast varies so much from the updated figures, she replied: “Predicting the number of children being born is always quite a challenge. It’s notoriously difficult. The housebuilding programme in the area has been slower than anticipated. We don’t want to press on with a large investment in the wrong place for the wrong number of children. Even with planning consent, it doesn’t necessarily mean an immediate start to the building work. It’s an accurate estimate of what we can foresee.”

Conservative Biggleswade South councillor Mark Foster, who chairs the committee, said: “Dunton and Wrestlingworth is a compromise which works well for the residents. There’ll be sufficient capacity created across all the schools.”

Ms Archer added: “We’ve a multitude of factors taken into account, such as sufficient outdoor play space for children. Many of these schools were built years ago. We assess what they’ve got, we look at what they need and then we see what’s possible. It’s also doing that investigation now to future proof our work.”

There will also be a reduction of school places at Caldecote Academy and no new sixth-form provision, said a CBC statement.