School closure will cause 'immeasurable harm'

Plans to close a village primary school will cause "immeasurable harm" to the community, parents have said.

Multi-academy trust Coastal Learning Partnership (CLP) is consulting on proposals to merge St George's in Langton Matravers, Dorset, with St Mark's in nearby Swanage.

The trust, which operates 20 primary schools in Dorset, said falling pupil numbers left it with a challenge where every solution carried difficult consequences.

South Dorset Labour MP Lloyd Hatton said options included splitting the infants and juniors across two sites or turning St George's into a pre-school or a school for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Pete Guille, whose children attend St George's, said: "Parents were told that joining the CLP was the best way to secure the future of the school.

"A little over two-and-a-half years later we received a letter from CLP, quite out of the blue, setting out a consultation to close the school.

"It's completely blown us all apart because there was no prior engagement to this."

Guille said the schools had been "at the heart of the village" for more than 150 years.

"It's an excellent school, it's got fantastic teachers and support staff," he said.

"Our children are happy there.

"Closing this school would cause immeasurable harm to the wider community and, once it's gone, it's never coming back."

In a statement, CLP said it acknowledged the "strength of feeling" in the community, adding: "We are managing a difficult challenge - that of falling pupil numbers - where every option and solution carries difficult consequences.

"It is acknowledged that this proposal would have considerable impact on the village of Langton Matravers.

"Consultation responses to date indicate that this is a key area of concern and CLP really does share this concern.

"We are similarly concerned about the impact on the community of each school finding it increasingly difficult to deliver a quality education experience for our local children in the future."

Hatton said: "Very few primary schools in Dorset are full - a lot have seen their numbers slide and the projections for the future show that's going to continue.

"One of the options as part of the consultation is to have the infants at one site and the juniors at a different site.

"Another longer term aspiration could be to make it a SEND school. There's a shortage of SEND school places right across Dorset.

"A third option is early years - we don't have enough pre-school-age early years places - this would be an ideal site for that."

A public consultation on the plans ends on 10 July.