Campaigners "don’t know" when decision on Rutland SEND school closure will be made
The Parks school was closed as part of a cost-cutting programme
A group protesting against the closure of Rutland's only special needs primary school says it has no idea when a final decision will be made.
The Save The Parks group is campaigning against the County Council’s decision to close the Oakham-based primary and has raised the £5,000 required for a judicial review.
The group is now waiting for a judge to give a decision on what is known as a ‘stage one hearing’ – a type of court proceeding in which a judge looks at the lawfulness of a decision made by a public body.
The claim is currently with the High Court, and while the first stage doesn’t necessarily involve a hearing unless the judge refuses permission based on the evidence in the papers, there is no timescale as to how long this process might take.
“Unfortunately we don’t know when the decision will be made by the judge,” said Antonia Garnett-Wright speaking on behalf of The Save the Parks School group.
“I have spoken with our legal team as we want to keep the people who donated the £5,000 to us, as up to date as possible.
“The lawyers are telling us that effectively there is no closing date now, as we have passed the legal requirements to allow the matter to go before a judge, and so it is simply a case of waiting until the decision on the ‘stage one hearing’ is made.”
The Parks School was Rutland’s only state maintained community special education needs (SEN) nursery school taking children up to seven years old. In the last two Ofsted inspections, it achieved a rating of ‘outstanding’.
In November, a public consultation was opened, and a petition against closure was signed by just under 4,000 people, representing nearly 10% of the population of Rutland.
However, the school was closed by Rutland County Council in January as part of a cost-cutting programme.
The Parks School had provision for up to eight children, but according to Dawn Godfrey, strategic director for children’s services, at the time of the public consultation only two were enrolled.
The council said: “Following the independent review of The Parks School, it was identified that the current arrangement was expensive and did not reflect the national and local aim for more children with special educational needs to be educated within their local mainstream early education or school setting."
“The Parks is no longer operationally viable and continuing to keep it open does not make best use of limited resources.”