Save Red Hall Playing Fields

Keep Red Hall green

Schools Closest to the Fields Are Already Oversubscribed

Core Strategy policy T2 calls for primary and secondary school accessibility to meet these criteria:

The Yorkshire Post reports

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.