Mark Menzies – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Menzies on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to adequately resource schools to meet the increased demand for school places from new residents of large housing developments in Fylde.

Edward Timpson

Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area, and supporting them to do so is one of this Government’s top priorities.

Basic need funding is allocated to local authorities to support them in creating new school places. We use data provided by local authorities to ensure funding is targeted according to levels of need in each area. This Government has committed to investing a further £7 billion to create new school places between 2015 and 2021. Lancashire will receive £46 million of basic need funding from 2015-2018.

Where place pressure is created by future housing developments, we expect local authorities to seek contributions from developers as they are an important way of helping to meet the cost of future places. It is for the local planning authority to negotiate developer contributions through section 106 agreements or Community Infrastructure Levies, and to decide on the local infrastructure needs that this contribution should support.