A CONSULTATION on how Bradford Council will create over 350 new school places for pupils with special educational needs has begun.

It comes as plans to create a new specialist school in the district have seemingly “hit a brick wall.”

With government legislation preventing Councils from opening new schools, it is up to academy chains or free schools to come up with plans for such provisions.

It had been expected that the Department for Education would soon approve a new free school for pupils with special educational needs. But at a meeting for heads across the district, members were told that this scheme was stalled, and so Bradford Council would need to look at different ways of creating extra places in the short term.

This could include creating new spaces at existing schools that are currently under capacity.

The extra places out to consultation include 116 new maintained Special School Places, 54 additional Designated Specialist Provision places in maintained schools, 28 Early Years Enhanced Specialist Provision places, 74 additional Academy Special School places, 23 Designated Specialist Provision places in academy schools and 40 new places in pupil referral units.

A Council spokesman said: “We are exploring all available opportunities for the development of these much needed specialist places and will also be considering schools with falling rolls as there maybe opportunities for utilising existing available space by way of re-configuring un-utilised space to maximise the capital budget we have available.”

The proposals were discussed by the Bradford Schools Forum - made up of school leaders, at a meeting last week. They were told that a recent grant from the Government’s Special Provision Fund for the Council was “disappointing.” The Forum had expected that Bradford would get around £1.1 million from the national fund, but Bradford was instead allocated just £306,000.

Marium Haque Deputy Director for Education and Learning, said: “We have to look at what we do in light of the disappointing news. We will have to use our basic needs funds to finance the schemes. Our building services department has gone out to a number of schools that have shown an interest in developing extra provision.”

Chair Dianne Richardson raised concerns over the lack of funding and the delays in the specialist school decision. She said: “It is like hitting a brick wall. It is really frustrating to say the least. Bradford is not getting the support from central Government we would expect.”

There will be a number of consultation events on the proposed changes in the next few weeks. The first will be one on Monday March 25 in Margaret McMillan Tower, Bradford from 1.30pm to 3pm, Tuesday April 9 in Margaret McMillan Tower from 5:30pm to 7pm and on Tuesday April 9 at Keighley Library Annexe from 10am to 11.30am.

The consultation ends on April 11. To have your say visit bradford.moderngov.co.uk/mgConsultationDisplay.aspx?ID=187