Parents will decide future of schools in referendum

Jan 15 2009 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

PARENTS will decide on a schools reorganisation in a pioneering move in the UK.

Kirklees Council’s Conservative Cabinet yesterday took the unprecedented step of calling a referendum on a controversial £200m education plan which could costs taxpayers up to £30,000.

But opposition politicians mocked the referendum idea, calling it “gutless” and “a wheeze”.

In September the ruling Conservatives announced a £200m reorganisation proposal for schools in north Kirklees. The plan involved closing 11 schools, including Castle Hall in Mirfield.

Birkdale High School and Westborough High School, Dewsbury would also shut, with a site being developed for a proposed new academy for North Kirklees.

Four middle schools – Birkenshaw, Gomersal CE, and West End and Whitechapel, Cleckheaton – would shut as Kirklees plans to return to a two-tier system with children changing school only at the age of 11.

Castle Hall, which has several hundred pupils from the Mirfield area, could be closed by August 2013. The students would transfer to an extended Mirfield Free Grammar School.

But, following a concerted protest from pupils, parents and teachers, the Conservatives announced yesterday that there would be a referendum.

Cabinet member for finance Clr Andrew Palfreeman said: “This is the first time something on this scale has been tried in the country. Council officers are drawing up plans for the referendum, which should take place in the spring.