Core Strategy policy T2 calls for primary and secondary school accessibility to meet these criteria:
Primary schools
Primary schools must be:
Within a 20 min walk or a 5 minute walk to a bus stop offering a direct service at a 15 min frequency (or, where appropriate, 10 min walk to a rail station offering a 30 min frequency service)
In 2015:
- Three out of five community admissions-policy primary schools closest to the fields were oversubscribed (they could not allocate all requested places)
- One out of the five (Shadwell Primary School) could not allocate places for pupils for whom it was their nearest school
- The one school with availability (Grange Farm primary) requires improvement and is not within the 20 minutes’ walking distance.
In short, there is no school that is not already oversubscribed – or worse, unable to provide places to all children for whom it is their nearest school – within the distances mandated by policy T2.
There is also no bus stop within 5 minutes’ walk offering a 15 minute service frequency to a major public transport interchange.
How this affected families in 2015
- One girl living in the houses immediately to the south of the fields was allocated a school 3.6 miles away – over an hour’s walk – from her home.
- One boy immediately to the south of the fields was allocated none of his parents’ five preferences – instead, he was allocated a religious school that was not his religion.
- Another family living in the houses immediately to the south of the fields had been forced to send her son to a primary school in Wetherby since moving here in 2013. Because of this, they have recently moved away from Leeds.
Secondary schools
Secondary schools must be:
Within a 30 min direct walk or 5 min walk to a bus stop offering a 15 min service frequency to a major public transport interchange (or, where appropriate, 10 min walk to a rail station offering a 30 min frequency service).
There are no secondary schools that meet the walking criteria near to any edge of the fields. There is no bus stop within 5 minutes’ walk offering a 15 minute service frequency to a major public transport interchange.