The shortage of secondary school places in Farnham concerns “Your Waverley” and Surrey County Council, the education authority.
Waverey’s existing Local Plan( LPP1 ) recognises that the main settlements can only accommodate a limited number of the Borough’s housing needs.
The Farnham Neighbourhood Plan 2020 (FNP) is delivering housing ahead of the rate needed to deliver all the homes by the end of the plan period in 2032, and several large sites have now been approved at appeal outside the FNP.
However, the delivery of the infrastructure, which includes schools, identified as Critical in the Waverley Infrastructure Delivery Plan (IDP) issued in July 2021 hasn’t kept pace. As a result, Farnham has reached the limit of accommodating additional housing without providing more Infrastructure, based on Waverley’s I D P.
Surrey County Council School Place Planning Team has advised Waverley’s Planning Officers that there are insufficient Secondary School Places in Farnham today (September 2024) for the current population. A birth rate bulge is also moving from Primary to Secondary schools.
More appeals were lodged in Surrey last year following the refusal of a school place application.
School leaders’ union NAHT said place planning has become uncoordinated in an “increasingly fragmented” school system, as it called for a plan to guarantee a school place for every child.
Government Inspectors have been given the power by Government to act as judge and jury to make their decisions without holistic knowledge and consideration. Facts still exist even when delegated authority choses to ignore them. Irrational Planning Inspector decisions are a perfect example of the absence of planning rationality and procedural impropriety.
Spot on Mr Edmonds. All the time the Government Inspectors can over-rule local decision making then boroughs like Waverley are stumped.
You mean to say there are residents of Farnham that don’t send their children to a good public school? Amazing.
Zadok and Clementine had their names down before they were conceived.
It really is too much. I blame the parents.
Vatinus Lumus
And that stupid woman Angela Rayner wants to increase the number of houses to be built above and beyond the existing local plan. Who needs politicians particularly the morons that serve us currently