Classrooms in schools rocked by falling rolls could be used by the NHS as “community health hubs”, the boss of the Department for Education’s property arm has said.
Lara Newman, the chief executive of LocatED, also said she was “seriously worried” about plunging birth rates undoing the free schools programme.
A drop in birth rates since the early 2010s has left primaries struggling to fill places and forced the worst-hit urban councils to slash intakes and close schools.
Councils ‘can’t afford it’
Speaking at a Westminster Education Forum on school buildings last Thursday, Newman said: “Local authorities are in a really difficult position around their own funding. They cannot afford to keep empty schools going.”
She argued that “finding some medium-term way of usefully utilising” empty space was “absolutely crucial”.
Options that could keep school buildings occupied and viable “if and when children return”, included using empty spaces as “community health hubs” alongside public health and wellbeing services.
A slide shown during her talk noted paediatric clinics, vaccination centres and mental health drop-ins would all be “suitable for school settings”. It also recommended “NHS workers embedded for referrals and staff training”.
NHS in schools
The Bridgemary School in Hampshire has had an NHS mental health support team on its site since 2019, when the 1,200-place secondary was about 50 per cent full.
Tom Garfield, Bridgemary’s head, said the school charged a “peppercorn rent” with the team “pretty straightforward” to accommodate.
The facility, which uses office space and two former classrooms, has its own entrance
“What we get in return … is the capacity for our staff to have booked-in clinic time to talk through [school] strategies and queries we may have. If we got back to 1,200 [pupils] we wouldn’t have to evict them.
“If schools do make a decision on falling rolls to occupy spare space with other services, there does need to be consideration over what would happen if pupil numbers rose.”
Declining childbirth rates are taking many schools well above the advised 5 per cent rate of surplus places.
But Education Policy Institute research shows the impact over the next five years “is projected to be more pronounced in London”, with declines expected in “almost all” boroughs.
By 2028-29, primary pupil numbers in Islington and Lambeth are forecast to fall “by around 30 per cent compared to a decade earlier”. Twenty-three schools have closed in the 10 councils with the “largest declines” in primary pupils since 2020-21.
Free school worries
Newman said birthrate rises in the Noughties created a “massive need” for new primaries and secondaries, which was addressed by the free schools programme.
“The department had to put a lot of money into that programme to buy lots and lots of sites across London to deliver it.
“If we lose those schools – whether those are free schools, academies or local authorities, it doesn’t really matter – we will be in a very difficult situation trying to figure out … how we then secure those sites at a point down the line.”
Newman pointed to Churchill Gardens Primary School in Westminster. The site was left empty after its amalgamation in 2024 with a neighbouring school in the same trust, Future Academies. Newman is one the MAT’s directors.
Dr Lawrence Foley, its chief executive, said the space now housed Future’s head office, a childminding service, and a mentoring and work experience organisation.
Another community interest company was also set to run a “winter warm hub for the elderly, after-school clubs for young people with SEND and a prayer space for women and children”.
Foley said it “made sense” for the trust to “hold on to the site and run some of the outreach activities from that building”, in part, because it runs three other schools nearby.
More school solar panels
In 2024, LocatED released a handbook to help local authorities and academy trusts “unlock potential” in their estates.
It told schools to consider trying to secure sell-on agreements with developers when flogging surplus land to fund rebuilds.
The company is also leading the delivery of solar panels to schools as part of government-owned Great British Energy’s first major project. The scheme was expanded to 250 schools in October.
But during last week’s talk, Newman confirmed “it is likely” more will be added, adding: “[But] I don’t know who that is.”
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