Walsall Council bosses to approve £1m spending and 125-year lease for new free school

Cabinet members of Walsall Council will also approve a payment of £1 million to the Department for Education (DfE) to start the project.

In 2017, the DfE approved a mainstream secondary free school for Blakenall and the wider area of Walsall.

The Windsor Academy Trust was appointed to operate the proposed school which will host approximately 1,000 students.

The DfE undertook site searches and determined that 13.7 acres of woodland at Reedswood Park was the preferred site.

Since the announcement, many have argued that the vacant Sneyd Comprehensive School on Vernon Way would make better use of taxpayers’ money and be less environmentally damaging.

Others have suggested the soon-to-be vacant Forest Arts Centre on Hawbush Road – currently home to Walsall Arena and Walsall College’s Hawbush Campus, both of which are set to move into the town centre.

But it is understood that the DfE money can only be used to build a new school, not expand or improve existing sites.

The council says without the £50m investment, it would have to fund the required additional school places from its own capital budget.

The site was formerly part of the Reedswood Colliery and later the former Walsall Power Station.

Following the decommissioning and demolition of the power station in 1987, a nine-hole municipal golf course was created on the site which closed in 2007.

As previously reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, planning agent Robin Whitehouse described the project as a ‘money grabbing exercise with no regard for huge levels of environmental damage’.

He said: “Reedswood Park contains important bat roosts, excellent bat foraging habitat, and also provides habitats for small hole nesting woodland bird species.

“The school development proposal for Reedswood Park appears to be little more than an empire-building and vanity project being led by a small group of Walsall councillors with strong levels of influence.”

The park has been awarded Green Flag status for the last three years, a recognition from Keep Britain Tidy under the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government. It is also an Asset of Community Value (ACV).

Prior to the disposal of any property registered as an ACV, a mandatory moratorium period must be carried out to allow community groups to express interest in submitting a bid.

However, the regulations state that if an ACV is being disposed of for the use of a school, the moratorium period is not applicable.

The free school funding was approved by the DfE on the basis that the site would be transferred by the council on a 125-year lease at a peppercorn rent, and that a contribution of £1million would be made by the council to the DfE to offset some of the abnormal development costs, estimated at £4.6million.

Cabinet members are set to approve the deal at a meeting on Wednesday February 11, but the project will still be subject to planning permission.

In the event that the DfE does not secure planning permission for the development, the lease will not be completed and the payment will not be made.

In making the decision, Walsall Council has reported no negative health and wellbeing or climate implications as a result of losing 13.7 acres of public woodland.