Could it be back to the drawing board for school plans in Colchester?

12.00.00am GMT Tue 9th Mar 2010

Bob Russell MP outside Thomas Lord Audley School

Controversial plans for secondary school reorganisation in Colchester - including the closure of Thomas Lord Audley and Alderman Blaxill Schools - could be put back on the drawing board after a top level meeting yesterday evening between Schools Minister Mr Vernon Coaker and Town MP Bob Russell who was accompanied by Monkwick parent Mr Joe Slatter.

Mr Slatter has undertaken extensive statistical research which Mr Russell said "destroyed the flawed case put forward by Essex County Council to justify the closure of the two schools in South Colchester."

Mr Russell said after the meeting: "At the very least, I know that as a result of the evidence produced by Mr Slatter the proposals for Colchester will now be subjected to the most thorough scrutiny that has ever been done before by Partnerships for Schools which is the Government body responsible for the so-called Building Schools for the Future secondary school development proposals across the country.

"While at this stage I must not raise hopes too high, I honestly believe that thanks to Mr Slatter's detailed analysis the case for closure will show that the County Council's figures are flawed and that this will result in the whole of the reorganisation package being looked at afresh. Indeed, I would be surprised if the whole lot was not sent back to the drawing board."

He added: "I do not expect this to happen immediately. It will take a couple of months or so rather than a couple of weeks. The matter is being treated very seriously by Partnerships for Schools who will be meeting Essex County Council in due course, and people can be assured as a result of last night's meeting that serious and searching questions will be put to the people from County Hall."

The meeting, in the private office of Mr Coaker at the Department of Children, Schools and Families, was arranged after Liberal Democrat Mr Russell challenged the Secretary of State, the Rt Hon Ed Balls MP, at last month's Departmental Questions in the House of Commons as the Colchester MP pursued his dogged campaign at Parliamentary level to save the two schools from closure - a battle which he has been waging for two years from when Conservative-controlled Essex County Council, under the then Leadership of Lord Hanningfield, first proposed shutting them.

And less than three hours before yesterday's meeting, during the March Questions to Mr Balls, Mr Russell specifically praised Thomas Lord Audley School for exceeding Government academic targets, achieving the best results in the School's history, and attracting more Year 7 pupils last September than for many years, thus removing the two reasons put forward by the County Council to close TLA.

After the meeting with the Minister, Mr Russell said: "Mr Slatter has been brilliant. His dedicated and detailed analysis of the figures, using the County's own figures as well as researching other statistical evidence to support what he started to unearth from the County's flawed prospectus or 'dodgy dossier' which I think is a more accurate description, in my opinion shows that the County has either been incompetent or has been deceitful. Regardless of which, Mr Slatter's detective work shows that closing these two schools is not justified on the reasons claimed by the County."

He added: "I think the County's case for closure has been politically motivated. They are not in the best interests of the communities of Monkwick and Shrub End and the children who live there. Mr Slatter's research has exposed as false the projected figures of declining pupil numbers in a town which continues to experience massive growth of new housing at every point of the compass including South Colchester where both these schools are located."

Describing the meeting which was spread over about an hour - interrupted when the Minister and Mr Russell had to dash back to the House of Commons for a vote - Mr Russell said that it had been thorough with two representatives from Partnerships for Schools taking a keen interest in what he and Mr Slatter had to say.

"The 20 minutes or so the Minister and I were absent did not stop Mr Slatter and the two officials continuing a detailed discussion, which Mr Slatter told me afterwards he thought the officials found to be particularly helpful as he was able to discuss in great detail his findings - which he has produced in a detailed dossier for them to consider further and which had been supplied to them last week."

Mr Russell said: "I stressed to the Minister I supported the plans for a new building at Greenstead to replace the Sir Charles Lucas Arts College, a 1960s complex which by common consent needs to be demolished, and although I am opposed to the concept of it becoming an academy I would not press my opposition. Saving Thomas Lord Audley and Alderman Blaxill remains my main objective, not the future status of the 'new' Sir Charles Lucas as a school, college or academy."

Last year it was announced that the reorganisation of Colchester's secondary schools would result in a £130 million investment in the Borough's secondary schools although last month it was revealed that perhaps as much as £30 million of this would in fact go to a school at Hockley. The Colchester package, based on the closure of Thomas Lord Audley and Alderman Blaxill, would involve a massive extension of both The Stanway School and Philip Morant School - to around 1,600 and up to 2,000 pupils respectively - with St Helena, The Gilberd and Thurstable at Tiptree all expanding. St Helena would be demolished and a new complex built on the site in Sheepen Road.

Specifically, children from the Monkwick area of Colchester would be bussed daily to Stanway.

However, if it now transpires that the principal reason for closing Alderman Blaxill and Thomas Lord Audley Schools is proved to be wrong - namely a permanent fall in the number of children of secondary school age is not correct - then there would be no necessity for major expansions at Stanway and Philip Morant Schools, nor the smaller expansion at The Gilberd and Thurstable and a "new" St Helena.

Essex County Council is separately planning for a new secondary school in North Colchester, in the Mile End and Braiswick area, to accommodate pupils from the projected major new housing developments in that part of the town.

Thomas Lord Audley and Alderman Blaxill Schools currently operate as a loose federation with The Stanway School under the Executive Headship of Mr Jonathan Tippett, a man whom Mr Russell has previously praised in the House of Commons for his "inspirational leadership" which has transformed the fortunes of all three schools. Supporters want the arrangement to be made permanent with the three schools continuing the progress which they have achieved since Mr Tippett took over.

Last night Mr Russell said: "Investment in Colchester, good investment, is always welcome. But it is wrong, wrong, wrong for public money to be squandered. And it would be if Alderman Blaxill and Thomas Lord Audley Schools were shut on bogus figures. Let's have the new building to replace Sir Charles Lucas College, and let's upgrade the other secondary schools as necessary.

"But, particularly at a time when all the political parties are warning of pending cuts in public spending, should we embark on wasteful public spending which is what the current re-organisation package involves and which the people of Colchester have emphatically said they do not approve of?"