Birkenshaw parents fail to get high school decision re-opened

Aug 1 2009 By Barry Gibson

PARENTS failed last night to persuade Kirklees Council to consider building a school in their village.

Residents in Birkenshaw have been fighting for months for a new high school on the site of the village’s middle school.

The council’s Cabinet decided against building the school two weeks ago.

And a special panel of councillors, which had been asked to examine the issue, decided yesterday not to re-open the matter.

On July 16 the council’s Cabinet ruled on several schools as part of a £200m plan for high schools in north Kirklees.

Most controversially, the Cabinet decided to set up a co-educational school for 1,350 pupils on the Batley Girls High site at Howden Clough, rather than build a high school on the site of Birkenshaw Middle School.

Opposition Conservative councillors “called in” the decision to a special Scrutiny Panel, saying the Cabinet had ignored strong support for a high school in Birkenshaw.

The panel met for seven hours at Dewsbury Town Hall yesterday.

Clr Robert Light told the panel that the Labour / Lib Dem Cabinet had decided on the schools plan before consulting parents.

The Birstall and Birkenshaw Conservative said: “There’s a huge amount of evidence to show that the decisions of the Cabinet were pre-determined.”

Clr Light said parents in the Birkenshaw area would send their children to high schools in Leeds and Bradford rather than the new co-educational school in Batley.

He said: “The proposal for Howden Clough would create a sink school and increase the exodus of children from north Kirklees. The children who would exit are likely to be the high achievers.”

Lisa Holmes from East Bierley agreed. She told the panel: “Parents will vote with their feet. We will not support a school in Howden Clough even if it’s refurbished and gets new staff. It will not lose its reputation.”