Plans for Luton to add more schools

New research from Scape Group, the public sector owned built environment specialist, has revealed that 164 classrooms or 13 new schools must be built in Luton by 2020 to meet growing numbers of primary and secondary school pupils.

Luton Council has already began to address this issue with the extension of Stopsley High School. In Luton’s Investment Framework 2015-2035, it says: “By 2018 two new schools will be built, a primary and a secondary school, to ease placement pressure and increase parental choice.”

A spokesperson for Luton Council said: “Luton Council follows demographic trends very closely in order to manage its school population. The Luton Investment Framework outlines a number of projects in place to ensure we meet our statutory requirement to continue to provide excellent education for all children in the town over the coming years.

“Our requirements, as outlined in the Investment Framework, were to build two further schools and expand Stopsley High by 2020.

“Our latest analysis shows that by 2020 we will need one further high school and some primary school expansions as well.”

Nationally, local authorities are estimating there will be an additional 729,000 primary and secondary school pupils by 2020, based on Department of Education Statistics.

Mark Robinson, chief executive of Scape Group, said: “The country will soon start to feel the full weight of the impending boom in pupil numbers, and we’re already seeing unprecedented pressure on school places. A radical new wave of school-building must be a government top priority .”