County's sums don't add up

3.10.00pm GMT Tue 15th Dec 2009

Hertfordshire County Council has got the number of primary school places needed in Watford badly wrong, underestimating the number of children who need places in local primary schools by over a 1000.

In 2003/4 they closed two schools (Meriden and Alban Wood) in North Watford, despite bitter opposition from Sal Brinton, local Liberal Democrats and many residents, who all said that more families were moving into the area, and that the places would be needed.

Earlier in 2009 the Council admitted that it had run out of reception places, and announced some one-off temporary classrooms in three schools.

However, this week the County Council has admitted there is a need for a minimum of 840 new places (equal to 6 new forms of entry in each primary year group) by the school year 2013/14.

The paper lays out the figures for increasing the admissions numbers, but does not explain that this will be permanently increasing the school's size, against their own recommendations. They will be creating two schools each of three forms of entry. This is one form greater than the county admits is best to educate children. In total there will be a need for a minimum of 28 new classrooms or, as predicted by the papers, a maximum of 41 classrooms or 1246 extra pupils.

There are no proposals for permanent classrooms, or even for a new primary school. The Liberal Democrat group on the County Council can find no capital allocation in the budget for any of these classrooms in the budget papers.

Sal Brinton Watford Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Watford said: "This is shocking news. Once again the Conservative-run county council has let down parents and pupils in Watford. We warned them in 2003 that closing schools was shortsighted. They have spent the money they made on selling those sites, but now need an astonishing minimum of 840 extra places but are not proposing any new permanent buildings."

"The Council must work closely with schools to make sure that they can cope with the extra classrooms, and frankly, with these numbers, they should be building a new primary school. It is not acceptable for this many pupils to be housed in temporary classrooms."