(UK) Calderdale: Council plans for $27M special school; new legislation may shorten the wait

July 31, 2025, Halifax Courier: New rules may allow Calderdale Council to go-ahead with plans to build its own £20m special needs school in Ovenden 

N. England

New legislation may allow councils to build new special educational needs and disability (SEND) schools of their own.

Calderdale Council has earmarked £20million [$27M] and a site to develop a much-needed new school, catering for primary and secondary age SEND pupils – but plans are in limbo due to the path local authorities currently have to take to get one opened.

That may change due to new legislation being introduced by the Government, said the council’s cabinet member for children and young people’s services, Coun Adam Wilkinson.

He had been asked by Coun Christine Prashad (Lib Dem, Greetland and Stainland) if the council had received adequate guidance from the Government to enable the council to press on with constructing its own SEND school at the Threeways site in Ovenden.

She also asked, bearing in mind the Government was expecting to make major SEND education announcements later this year, if concerns had been identified and raised with it, and whether the controversial issue of private SEND education providers being able to set their own rates had been addressed.

Councillors have previously heard of the searing cost of specialist placements, including out-of-area ones with associated travel costs – councils by law have to fund places and travel where children qualify – on the council.

Last autumn Coun Wilkinson (Lab, Sowerby Bridge) told councillors Calderdale is paying out £1.5m [$2M] a year for taxis to take children with special educational needs to school and £12m [$16M] a year on independent schools supplying these places.

He told Coun Prashad the council was still awaiting a Government decision on the new school.

As things stand, local authorities cannot open a new SEND school – it has to be done by establishing a new academy, through a process called the “free school presumption route”, said Coun Wilkinson.

“Although I also note that the Children’s Schools and Well-being Bill is bringing forward plans to allow local authorities to build their own schools and I believe that should receive Royal assent in the not-too-distant future.

“So that may actually change things and we may look at the situation again if and when that happens,” he said.

He said the issue of private SEND providers being allowed to set their own fees had been raised, as had issues of concern.

These included an increasing number of children being identified with SEND whose needs were not being met, more money being invested by councils in SEND but this not being sufficient to meet demand, and increasingly adversarial SEND tribunals resulting in backlogs.

If the High Needs deficit “statutory over-ride” – whereby Governments have been allowing councils not to take these deficits into account when setting their budget – was removed, half the councils in the country would become insolvent within a year, said Coun Wilkinson.