‘Appalling planning to blame’ for primary school places crisis

Leeds North West MP Greg Mulholland spoke out during a heated debate in the House of Commons in which Schools Minister David Laws blamed the last Labour government for creating pressure on local authorities to cut surplus places.

However, Leeds City Council’s executive member for children’s services, Coun Judith Blake, has accused the two Liberal Democrat MPs of “creating a smokescreen” to distract from the impact of their own policies on council planning.

Mr Mulholland said: “In 2001-02, Labour-run Leeds City Council forced through a raft of unpopular primary school closures against the wishes of the community. Now, Labour-run Leeds City Council is saying that it does not have enough places and that it needs to spend lots of taxpayers’ money building more schools. How can we prevent such appalling planning in the future?”

The Yorkshire Post has previously reported that the city could face a potential shortfall of about 4,000 places in primary schools.

The Local Government Association has predicted that the number of primary school pupils in Leeds will rise to 69,641 by 2016/17.

The city currently has capacity for just over 65,000 pupils in its primary schools.

Answering Mr Mulholland’s question in the Commons, Mr Laws said: “Now we have evidence from the ground, from Leeds, about the exact consequences of the last Labour government and the mistake that they made by not investing properly in capital.”

He said under the last Labour Government £15m had been spent on “basic need” school places funding in Leeds while under the under coalition the figure was £99.2m.

Coun Blake said: “I think these comments are a smokescreen from coalition partners to distract people from the effect their own policies are having on council’s ability to plan for the future.

“Councils can no longer open up community schools in response to the need for places as there is a presumption that all new schools will be free schools or academies and councils have no say at all on where and when a free school can be opened.”

She said that mistakes in planning had been done by Education Leeds, an arms-length company which used to run the city’s education authority.