New housing development - impact on school catchment area

[jasmine2022]

Hi All,

We are currently looking to buy a property with school catchment being our top criterion. We like a property which happens to fall in relevant catchment as per previous years data. However, there is a big housing development ongoing in the area with quite a few high-rise buildings planned and under construction. The housing site is marginally closer to the school than the property we like. We are expecting a baby soon and 4 years down the line, at the time of school admission, this housing development is also expected to be constructed and presumably occupied.

So was wondering how would the increased population influence school catchment? And how should we factor this into our decision regarding the property. I guess planning approvals would generally take such impacts on local community into consideration but thought to hear if anyone had been in a similar situation before and how did they managed this dilemma. Thanks for any advice!

It could be part of the planning permission that the developer have to contribute towards infrastructure, I know round us they have paid towards having road junctions altered, a doctor's surgery & shops.

Check with the school. There at 2 new developments close to one of our local schools that aren’t/won’t be in it’s catchment area.

This has happened in our area but impacted high school not the primary school. It's meant some parent's didn't get any of their 3 choices for their children and ended up being allocated an out of area, inadequate school.

The parent's impacted appealed the decision but as the schools in the area were oversubscribed and admission criteria followed correctly, they did not win the appeal. Some parent's ended up choosing to home school.

It’s all ifs and buts and second guessing. eg we moved to a new estate that actually bordered the field of the local primary. However, because they went by driving distance later children on our estate didn’t get places as they popped a no turn right sign up in the middle of the driving route
(despite the fact that most families walked and the school was a ‘healthy school’ - I did try to argue this but got nowhere - but didn’t push further as it didn’t actually affect us - ds was already in - I was just outraged on behalf of my neighbours etc)
so that meant that all houses living that side of the sign were out of distance and their children didn’t get places! Don’t think families would have foreseen that!

You can try googling your local authority sufficiency and access information. In our LA 5 years forward projections for the City are on the web site. So things like this are accounted for and explained how it will be dealt with.

Thankyou everyone for the advices. Will try to connect with the local authority and see what we can find out. Thanks again.

Will it be built when your first child starts because most schools take younger siblings before other children?

We had/have this. Bought a house in the right area for the schools we wanted. Got into primary no problem however by the time the eldest applied to secondary, a new development had been built and they had priority over us.

Thankfully my son got into our school of choice but to give you an example of how close it was, my best friend daughter’s, who lives one road away did not get in. They bought their house fifteen years ago, thinking the same thing we did - that their child was guaranteed a place in the outstanding schools.

My middle son got into the secondary school through sibling link and now we only have the youngest to worry about as, guess what, they’re building another 30 houses closer to the secondary than we are. The development is expected to last two years and youngest only has one more year left at primary, so fingers crossed we get in.

Complete piss take. In our area they’ll build houses on any verge of grass available. The new development has taken over a popular beauty spot for dog walkers and families. And it’s not affordable housing, it’s 4/5 bed executive homes. My neighbours will literally move a few streets to ensure their kids get into the school.

I live in an area where they are building new properties left, right and centre. The council keeps building extensions and extra classrooms onto existing schools, saying there is no need for a new one.

Every few years they redraw the catchment areas, so a school in our catchment now may not be in our catchment when DC start school. You could find that in four years time the school you want to send your DC to isn't in your catchment anymore.

In 4 years time the school you like now could have gone down the pan.
It takes very little for the performance and ethos of a school to change drastically (for good or for bad) - a new head teacher, a few key staff leaving, a mini baby boom in a particular demographic or, in your case, new housing in the area. Probably other reasons I haven't thought of right now too.

I really wouldn't choose a house now based on a school you're going to use that far in the future.

I wouldn’t rely on council stipulating increases to local infrastructure. We live in an area where there has been massive development but no investment in local services. When my daughter was at primary school the school was under threat of closure, now you would be lucky to get a place. Things changed quickly. Getting a GP or dentist appointment is almost impossible!

This happened near us. Very established group of roads for years had been the go to roads for an outstanding primary. Up goes a new estate and the catchment area changed dramatically. In fact demand was so high, the catchment at one point was barely 300 metres.

To an extent we are in the same boat. All the building that's happened nearby has meant we are now looking decidedly iffy for the school we want for secondary. It is a worry. Up until a few years ago it was unheard of not to get in from our road. Now it's all over the place.

I think the moral is that it's very hard to predict with ongoing building. If school is the number 1 priority I'd be looking to get as near as possible. Other posters are right in that schools can change. But likewise if a school is consistently good / outstanding for years, is less likely to suddenly go downhill as you'd still have a motivated cohort etc.

Have you looked at what properties are actually being built? If it's high rise they will probably be mostly studio, 1-2 bed flats and therefore not the most attractive to families so the impact on schools may be low.

There's a large development opposite my DC's school. All properties are 2+ bed (mostly 4 beds) but they're large expensive properties and the outstanding rated school opposite is something the developers are really pushing - these properties are totally aimed at families. The occupants DC's will almost certainly push out some DC's on the edge of the village who historically would have got a place (straight line distance being the criterion after cared for and siblings).

On a side note, is there a defined catchment or another list of criteria? My town doesn't have a defined catchments for schools, it's generally cared for, siblings then shortest distance (a few exceptions such as religion and other obscure reasons). Sibling intake can make a huge difference, my DC wouldn't have got into her school the previous 2 years before her intake because of the high number of siblings whereas when we moved here it seemed a given she'd get a place. Her intake thankfully had a low sibling cohort.

What does it say in the planning permission about investment in local services? The developer will be required to pay a certain amount for local schools and the PP might state how and where that will be spent - eg local new estate to me funded increase of village primary from 2 to 3 form entry and that was the stated plan from early on. They also changed the local catchment areas to put all new estate in catchment for that school.

We lived in a new build with a secondary school literally across the road, but families with secondary aged children couldn’t get a place. That situation didn’t last long though, because the school expanded into the adjacent leisure centre, the leisure centre was moved into a brand new building on the estate and a primary school built.

Happened to us. An outstanding school was the default choice for the children on the road we moved onto, albeit out of catchment. Then the birth rate grew at the same time a big estate (of family houses) was built. We had no chance of getting in. Had we been looking for a place ten years later we would have got in (yes, I still check the stats). In fact the school pulls in people from further afield as the families who moved into the new houses have stayed put with their teenagers (and extended) and the birth rate has fallen.

Hi Everyone,
Thankyou so much for your valuable suggestions. We did checked with the local authority but did not get a definite answer. The planning permission do not say anything about investing in local services (it do say about a school to be built inside the campus but no timelines). We also checked on the type of builts and mostly it is 2 bed / 3 bed - might be of interest for young families. Because the school has a catchment area so it will most probably shrink in the future when our DC starts. We were a bit indecisive as the property is really good but because there is no backup school available and its very iffy with the target school (track record of the target school is very good) we are thinking to look somewhere else.
The suggestions we got really helped us in understanding the pros and cons. Thankyou to all.

Does it have a true catchment (a boundary drawn on publicly available maps and only changed after public consultation) or admissions by straight line distance? The latter is not strictly speaking a catchment area but the incorrect use is so endemic I’ve given up correcting people. The distinction is important in your case however.

@ThanksItHasPockets you are correct, not a true catchment area. Its the closest distance to the school which in our case is likely to change after the housing development is complete.