Schools on closure "hit list"

Schools in Ramsbottom, Bury and Radcliffe are under threat, and could follow Brandlesholme primary school into extinction.

Councillors are to consider a "hit list" of five options at Tuesday's (Jan 29) executive committee.

The available options are:

to close either St Andrew's CE or St Paul's CE primary school in Ramsbottom: probably the latter, as it has a 27 per cent surplus places rate.

to close Affetside primary school. A low demand for places from local people means 40 per cent of its places are unfilled.

to close either St John's CE or St Mark's CE primary in Bury. Again, they suffer from low demand: the surplus rate at St John's is 51 per cent; at St Mark's, 21 per cent.

to merge Fishpool Infant school and St Chad's CE Junior school in Bury, although neither school has spare places.

to merge Radcliffe Infant and Radcliffe Junior schools into a single primary school. The current infants school is 35 per cent empty.

The proposals come from education chiefs who have spent months looking at tackling the increasing number of unfilled primary school places. They want to reduce the total number of surplus places in the borough to five per cent, and to ten per cent at an individual school, by as early as September 2003.

Falling birth rates mean that demand for places in primary schools in Bury has dropped by 1,000 in four years. This is forecast to go down by a further 1,400 by 2006.

Fewer pupils means less cash for all Bury schools. The borough will lose £632,000 this year because of falling school rolls.

Officers say they have looked at all options, from closing or amalgamating schools to mothballing them or removing temporary buildings.

They also considered parental choice, the condition of buildings, future housing development and general financial viability.

The executive is being asked to approve formal consultation on the closure options, with a further report due in April. Tuesday's meeting starts at 6pm at Bury Town Hall.