Contingency plans are being put in place after it emerged a new secondary school in Preston might not be ready by the time the extra pupil places are needed.

The delay comes in spite of education bosses having two options about where to build the facility, which will cater for 600 students.

A meeting of Lancashire County Council’s cabinet heard unspecified “temporary solutions” were being considered in case the school – intended to serve the rapidly-expanding north west of the city – cannot open its doors as planned in September 2027.

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That is the target gate the authority has set for the delivery of the long-awaited new establishment, but – with just two-and-a-half years to go – there is still no certainty about its location.

Cabinet members have formally identified a plot of land at Maxy Lane in Higher Bartle – between Sandy Lane and Tabley Lane – as the “preferred site” for the school.  But they have also left the former home of Tulketh High School, in Ingol, on the table as an alternative.

Both sites have been in the running since last October, but the county council has previously indicated that unless it had acquired the Higher Bartle land by the end of this month, it would have to pursue redevelopment of the Tulketh plot in order to ensure the school could open at the start of the 2027/28 academic year.

However, the authority now says “challenges” with both sites mean there is a risk that neither of the two options will be deliverable by that date.  To that end, it will continue to treat both plots as possibilities, while also developing a temporary fallback in case a September 2027 at the eventually chosen location proves impossible.

While no details were given about the potential contingency option, it would likely involve the expansion of existing schools.

Cabinet member for education and skills Jayne Rear acknowledged the timeline for delivering the required year 7 entry places – across four forms –  “remains tight”.

She said a range of risks may cause a delay at both sites, including the fact that the land at Higher Bartle – which lies within a yet-to-be-built housing development – is not yet in the county council’s control, in spite of having been reserved for a school since the estate was granted permission more than three years ago.

County Cllr Rear added: “Every effort is being made to progress with all aspects to advance [the] work.

“Alternative temporary solutions are being considered to mitigate against the risk of delay and ensure that education provision will be [available by] September 2027, should the delivery of the main site not be completed on time.”

However, the deputy leader of the Labour opposition group, Jennifer Mein, said it was “deplorable” that the Conservative-run authority had not yet settled on a location for the school when the long-term plans for the expansion of North West Preston – where 5,500 new homes will be built over the 20 years to the mid-2030s – dated back more than a decade.

“At the 12th hour – not even the 11th hour – you still do not have [the preferred] site in your ownership.  Because of this, it’s costing extra money for feasibility and design at both sites,” County Cllr Mein said.

She added that certainty about the plans would have been welcomed by “the poor parents who’ve moved [to the area]  – some of them before they even had children – expecting there to be a high school close to them [by] now”.

But deputy county council leader Alan Vincent rejected the criticism, noting that a school recently built in Nottingham still stood empty, because the need for it had not been properly established beforehand.

He said: “We are not going to make that mistake.   There was no indication that we would build a school at a time previously when the demand had not yet occurred. You don’t just build it and hope that they will come.

“We were not in a position to make any progress…until every piece of the jigsaw had been put in place.  That [jigsaw] is now nearly all in place and we remain optimistic that we can…deliver this school in the timeframe it will require – and not too soon or too late,” County Cllr Vincent added.

Classroom conundrum

County Cllr Rear said the former Tulketh High site – which was last used as a school back in 2008 – appeared to be “the more deliverable” of the two options for the new secondary.   The old building has already been demolished and the county council owns the land.

However, the plot did not prove popular when it was put to the public in a consultation just over two years ago, with the responses being sufficiently strong to send the authority back to the drawing board initially.   Concerns were raised over the location, some one-and-a-half miles away from the Higher Bartle option, which lies at the heart of the North West Preston expansion area that the new school is designed to serve.

A report presented to cabinet members noted there were also practical problems with building a school on the Tulketh site, notwithstanding the fact that it had previously been used for just that purpose.

The old sports hall remains in situ and is now being operated by a leisure company which leases it, while there is also a telecom tower on the site and a wildlife habitat corridor, which could pose a challenge given the need to protect and enhance biodiversity.

Unlike the Higher Bartle site, the former Tulketh High location does not yet have permission for a new school to be built there.   However, at Higher Bartle, the principal issue remains that the land is not yet in Lancashire County Council’s control.

Attempts are being made to obtain the licence that would be needed to allow the authority access to conduct further surveys that are still required.    It had previously been permitted to carry out a topographical assessment.

The results of the outstanding site condition surveys will influence the final layout and design of the school, which has to be established before a constructor can be appointed to build the facility.

The land for the school cannot be transferred to the county council until the wider site is acquired by Taylor Wimpey, which has permission to develop 320 homes there.   County Cllr Rear said the timeframe for that key process remained “unknown”, just three weeks before the authority had previously suggested it needed to have occurred in order for Higher Bartle to remain a live option.

However, it appears the uncertainty surrounding the Tulketh site – and the possibility that a new school would not be ready by September 2027 at either location – has seemingly made the deadline for land acquisition more fluid.

“Officers continue to work closely with Preston City Council, the land agent, landowners and developers to ensure the county council remains informed of progress,” the cabinet report concluded.

How did we get here?

A masterplan for the development of the North West Preston area was adopted in early 2017.  The document had its roots in the Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire City Deal signed with the government just over three earlier, which sought to deliver the infrastructure – including schools – necessary to create 17,000 new homes and 20,000 jobs.

The masterplan stated that the 5,500 dwellings set to be built in North West Preston over a two-decade period would create the demand for one secondary and two primary schools.

The land at Maxy Lane in Higher Bartle has been reserved for the high school since planning permission was granted for a major new housing estate on the surrounding plot in January 2022.

However, by last autumn, County Hall was instead poised to develop the school on the former Tulketh High site in Ingol, because of a delay in taking control of the originally earmarked land. But just before that move was given the green light, the authority learned that it may be able to acquire the Higher Bartle site in time to have the new school open by the point at which the extra places are needed in September 2027.

Lancashire County Council originally said it would have to make a decision by the start of this year about which of the two locations to pursue .  However, in January, deputy leader Alan Vincent suggested the cut-off point would actually come in “late March”.

With that date rapidly approaching – and both options now posing a delivery challenge in time for the 2027/28 school year – it appears that the uncertainty over the location of the new school is set to continue for some time yet.

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