Cabinet is asked on 14 October to build a £17m school on Milton Road open space in Radcliffe despite 20 objections, borrowing £13.6m. Every meeting this week.
Bury Council’s Cabinet will be asked on Wednesday 14 October to approve a £17 million school on open land in Radcliffe. It is also asked to approve selling off that land, after 20 people objected.
Most of the cost would be borrowed. The report says the borrowing would add to the council’s budget gap for the next 40 years.
Four council meetings are scheduled between Monday 12 and Sunday 18 October. All of them are listed below, with what each one decides.
Tuesday 13 October
Schools’ Forum, 4pm, online (Microsoft Teams). The forum of school leaders hears the latest forecast for the schools budget. The high needs budget, which pays for pupils with special educational needs, is forecast to overspend by £12.22 million this year. It also gets an early look at 2027/28 school funding. Agenda.
Youth Cabinet, 5pm, Bury Town Hall. Young people’s representatives get a police update, discuss the future of the Youth Parliament and hold a debate on whether social media bans protect children. Agenda.
Overview and Scrutiny Committee (extra meeting), 7pm, Council Chamber. Councillors question the draft 2027/28 budget the day before Cabinet sees it. There is 30 minutes of public question time at the start. Agenda.
Wednesday 14 October: Cabinet, 6pm, Bury Town Hall
The full Cabinet agenda covers more than a dozen reports. These are the ones residents are most likely to notice.
A £17m school for excluded pupils on Milton Road, Radcliffe
The council wants to build a permanent home for Ash Grove, the borough’s alternative provision academy. It teaches pupils who cannot attend mainstream school, many of them excluded. It is run by the Oak Learning Partnership.
When we reported the plans in September, the council had published no site, no cost and no size. The Cabinet report now gives all three:
- Site: land on the north side of Milton Road, Radcliffe
- Size: up to 136 pupils, on one site
- Cost: about £17 million
- Deadline: the council signed a legal agreement with the trust in December 2024 to provide a permanent site by September 2028
Ash Grove is now split between temporary buildings at Whittaker Street in Radcliffe and the New Kershaw Centre in Bury. The report says renting them beyond the agreed two years could cost “at least £150,000” a year.
Officers looked at six other options. Three sites were too small. Wellington Road, with or without the Grundy Hub, was “heavily contaminated”, which would have added about £3 million. The Department for Education is using the top of the sixth, Redvales South, for a new school.
How it would be paid for. Only £3.384 million comes from government grant and land sales. The other £13.616 million would be borrowed. The report says that would cost the council:
- £445,000 in 2027/28
- £805,000 in 2028/29
- £1.14 million a year from 2029/30, for 40 years
It says those costs “will need to be reflected in an updated MTFS and increase the budget gap”. That is the same budget where the council is already consulting on cuts to close a £9.6 million gap.
Cabinet is also asked to approve the designs so a full planning application can be submitted.
The objections to selling the land
A separate report asks Cabinet to go ahead with disposing of the Milton Road land as public open space. It covers about 14,685 square metres and is managed by Leisure Services.
The council advertised the plan in the Bury Times on 27 August and 3 September. Twenty objections came in by the 24 September deadline. Many raised more than one point:
| What objectors raised | Number |
|---|---|
| Loss of open space or a community asset | 18 |
| Health, wellbeing or access | 16 |
| Other sites should be used | 16 |
| Wildlife, green space or drainage | 13 |
| Safety, traffic, parking or noise | 12 |
| Households without gardens, deprivation | 11 |
The report’s answer to the open space points is that Bolton Road Park, Red Bank Nature Reserve and Red Bank Playing Fields are nearby. It says objections about the site’s future use are “not relevant to this decision”, which is “solely to approve the disposal”.
Yet the future use is on the same agenda. The Ash Grove report names Milton Road as the site and asks Cabinet to approve its designs at the same meeting.
The rest of the Cabinet agenda
- £12.9m for roads, pavements and bridges. No list of roads to be resurfaced: our full report.
- Draft 2027/28 budget and the savings consultation that opens on 19 October: our report on the £9.6m gap.
- Prestwich Travel Hub parking charges and running costs: £1 for the first hour.
- Parking enforcement. The contract with Marston expired on 31 August and the firm has carried on without one. Cabinet is asked to give it a £600,000 contract to 31 March 2027, then tender a long-term contract worth £5 million (report).
- Northern Gateway. Cabinet is asked to accept the last £8.5 million of Investment Zone grant for the Western Access road, and up to £3,129,915 for Balfour Beatty’s detailed design stage. Public consultation is planned for November (report).
- Housing allocations. Two changes: retiring tenants who live in a job-linked home could be rehoused directly, and the Director of Housing would get wider power to make direct lets (report).
- Anti-social behaviour policy 2027 to 2030, which adds guidance on complaints about overgrown trees, high hedges and invasive plants (report).
- Also listed: a Greater Manchester fostering hub, the Families First Partnership Programme, a Live Well pilot, a lease extension for St Monica’s, a new lease at Bridge Trading Estate and a new shareholder agreement with Persona.
What it means for you
- You can watch or attend. Cabinet and scrutiny meet in public at Bury Town Hall. The council asks people to let it know about access needs before they come.
- Ask a question on Tuesday. The scrutiny meeting sets aside 30 minutes for public questions on the budget papers.
- Milton Road neighbours: the objection period for the land sale has closed, but a planning application would bring a new chance to comment. Watch our planning news page.
We will report the decisions after Wednesday’s meeting.
Have your say