'It's perfect': push to rebuild Preston school last used in 2008
The two sites where a new Preston secondary school could be built have become the subject of rival petitions.
Lancashire County Council is due to make the long-awaited decision over the location of the 600-pupil facility in September.
The choice is between land in Higher Bartle - reserved specifically for the purpose - and the former home of Tulketh High School in Ingol which was cleared in 2024, having been vacant for 16 years.
Yet in spite of the latter receiving a negative response in a public consultation two-and-a-half years ago, a petition pushing for precisely that option has now been created - describing the site as the “much more suitable” choice. It had received 134 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon - but a petition supporting the Higher Bartle plot had attracted almost four times as many, at 509.
Each of the opposing expressions of support have been lodged on the county council's website, where they can be signed for the next four weeks.
The authority has previously said the Higher Bartle site - between Sandy Lane and Tabley Lane - is its preferred option. But in spite of it being earmarked for a secondary establishment since January 2022 - when it was granted planning permission as part of a wider development of 320 homes - the land is still not under the county council's control, for reasons which have never been fully explained.
That led the authority to pursue the old Tulketh High site on Tag Lane - some one-and-a-half-miles away - as a fallback in order to ensure the additional school places needed in the city were available by the target date of September 2027.
However, that option attracted negative feedback during the public consultation - as well a criticism from several local councillors, who claimed it was the wrong place to put a school intended to serve the needs of the new residents of North West Preston, where 5,500 new homes will be built across the two decades to the mid-2030s.
The results of the public survey were never published, but the reaction was hostile enough for the then cabinet member for education and skills, Jayne Rear, to declare in March 2023 that the indication had been that “parents would prefer another site”.
The response later prompted the county council to return to working towards developing the Higher Battle site, for as long as it remained feasible to do so.
In contrast to the apparent opposition expressed during the consultation, signatories to the petition supporting the Ingol site want to see a new secondary built to “recreate” the former Tulketh High, which was named Tulketh Community Sports College by the time of its closure in the summer of 2008.
“Longstanding residents have missed out on a local secondary school for many years...forcing families to travel further afield, which has also increased our carbon footprint.
“As the population rises, we are increasingly in dire need of more educational facilities - because of this, the Tulketh site is a perfect opportunity; due to the pre-existing infrastructure, it will save time and costs. Roads are wide and crossings already in place for safety.
“Locating the school [in] Bartle would increase congestion issues, cost more money [and] take much longer as the drainage is not adequate,” the petition adds.
However, the penultimate line - which references that "we also have a heavy flow of agricultural vehicles in Bartle which could cause a danger to students" - suggests that the push for building on Tulketh High may have originated from the alternative potential location.
Either way, Cllr Ben Ward, who represents the Ingol and Cottam areas on Preston City Council and supports Higher Bartle as the home of the new school, said on social media it was important not to see the debate as “a battle between the communities or even an argument over which site is the best”.
“It's principally a conversation about school places and demand,” he added.
The petition backing Higher Bartle notes that the absence of a secondary facility in the surrounding Cottam area is putting “considerable pressure on adjacent secondary schools…resulting in siblings being split” between schools and leading to appeals against the allocation of school places.
It also makes broadly the reverse transport argument to those who support the resurrection of Tulketh High: “The alternative site being considered at Tulketh isn't appropriate. For the majority of the new homes which have been built, this location is not walkable.
“Locating the school on Tag Lane, an already busy artery road, would create significant congestion issues, combining with 'school run' traffic to two other local secondaries in...close proximity.
The Higher Bartle petition (https://tinyurl.com/4npz5mxa) closes on 24th August and the one for Ingol on 26th August (https://tinyurl.com/bdftksb7) - just under a week before the county council's cabinet is expected to make a final decision about the school site at a meeting on 4th September.