School plans were flawed

Plans for a new Catholic secondary school in Oldham were drawn up for land the council did not own, driven by a management team which was too small and a partnership board which was too big.

Those were the findings of a review of the aborted plans for a new school on the Meridian Business Centre site.

Proposals were put forward under Labour in 2007, although there was no formal approval to buy any of the land until November, that year.

Parts of the site were also owned by three different enterprises. Only one wanted to sell.

The school playing fields were due to be developed on a railway cutting — the value of which was unclear, and could have been worth anywhere up to £4 million. The assumption was that the Metrolink expansion would be approved after the vote on the congestion charge and the cutting would not be needed.

But, as the vote went against the congestion charge plans, the line is still owned by Network Rail.

As the negotiations over Meridian continued, the only way the council could guarantee ownership of the whole site was a compulsory purchase order, but none was approved.

Some officers did not know the deadline for the ownership of the site being settled.

Eventually, the new Liberal Democrat leadership said the site was not deliverable last year, and the diocese agreed to use the former Radclyffe School site in Chadderton.

The new £30 million school — a merger between Our Lady’s, Royton, and St Augustine’s, Werneth — is part of Oldham’s £230 million Building Schools for the Future programme.

The report to the council’s audit committee by the head of corporate governance, Mark Stenson, criticises the lack of serious contingency planning.

It states: “Lack of financial planning was illustrated in all aspects of this potential procurement.

“The exact cost of all the elements of this land assembly was not clear.

“The lessons learned from this exercise should be used to ensure there are well established, clear and unambiguous lines of responsibility between directorates involved in the delivery of future projects.”