School registered

JANICE BARKER September date for new RC primary
Formal proceedings have begun to set up a new Roman Catholic primary school in Derker.

The Salford RC Diocese and Oldham Council have published a public notice of their intentions to merge Our Lady’s, Moorside, with Sacred Heart in Whetstone Hill, Road, Derker.

The new school will open next September on the Sacred Heart site and will cater for 210 boys and girls aged three to 11, with a 26-place nursery.

Local people have six weeks to object or make comments about the proposal.

Plans to close Our Lady’s were met with anger and sadness from parents who enlisted the help of their former MP Phil Woolas earlier this year. The Diocese wants to close Our Lady’s, in Turf Pit Lane, because they say the site is too small for expansion, and will spend over £1 million enlarging Sacred Heart.

The plans were first revealed in the Chronicle in November, last year.

Both schools have reduced demand for places and funding problems.

Sacred Heart has only half of its 210 places filled, but has a larger site and its own school playing fields, while Our Lady’s also has surplus places but can only fit 105 pupils into the building, has no school hall and is on a restricted site.

Oldham councillors have approved the plan for Sacred Heart and heard that it serves a highly deprived area, among the worst 10 per cent in England.

They have also agreed to contribute £600,000 from the council’s capital programme for primary schools towards the new school.