At the Cabinet Meeting of March 13th, Stockport’s Labour Cabinet made an important statement about the future of Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) education in Stockport – detailing the intention to build a new school of this type.
A statement read out at the Cabinet meeting on 13th March detailed how Council projections mean Stockport’s SEND school capacity has ‘become increasingly challenged in accommodating the growing numbers of children and we have now run out of capacity in the existing buildings’.
In response, the Labour Cabinet have outlined the intention to fund and build a new primary educational facility to accommodate the increasing numbers and to future proof our schools through ‘a high quality, long term solution to ensure that our children are given the very best, world class learning environments.’
The plans could mean the Council saves money at the same time as providing better services for the children concerned through savings made on the cost of transporting children outside of the borough. Currently, some SEND children have a 70-mile round trip every day to receive the most appropriate education.
Cabinet will now have to follow usual Council processes of outlining detailed business plans on the project, which will then be subject to scrutiny by Council members. These processes will have to be followed before exact details of costings and potential sites for the new school are finalised.
Commenting on the statement, Cabinet Member for Education, Cllr Dean Fitzpatrick said:
“This important statement makes clear our plans as a Cabinet to deal with two problems at once.
“We face a challenging situation in projected demand for SEND places and need to plan appropriately to accommodate the needs of our children.
“To meet our statutory responsibilities in this area, some of our SEND children go on a 70-mile round trip and spend two hours in a bus every day just to get to school, when really, they should be in school with their friends, learning and having fun.
“The plans we will take forward therefore have the potential to significantly improve the services SEND children receive, while still delivering savings for the Council.
“These proposals will address this by seeking to build additional capacity within the Borough, a move which would pay for itself through the savings on transportation, and in my opinion therefore provides a win-win situation.”
When pressed further for details of the costs involved, Cllr Fitzpatrick said:
“Both the optimal siting and exact figures will need to be agreed via the Council’s usual decision making processes.
“However, going on agreed national standards for the type of facility, we are looking to build costs in the region of £12-15million. If this goes forward as we expect, this will therefore bring the investments we have identified and committed to spending on educational capital investments to around £40million within a two year period, and at no additional cost to the taxpayer.”
If Council processes go ahead as expected, the plans could be signed off at the Cabinet meeting of April 24th this year