Labour-controlled Trafford Council has demonstrated alarming incompetence in its abrupt cancellation of the pivotal Altrincham College expansion, a scheme originally designed to provide 300 additional secondary school places by September 2025.
The Altrincham College expansion had an initial projected cost of £7 million, but the ballooning estimate before its cancellation was £22 million. This amounts to £73,000 per pupil place which is almost three times the national benchmark of £27,000 per pupil place.
Additionally, £2 million had already been spent on this projected and that money has now gone to waste. This financial burden will shift onto the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) portion of the Council's budget- this part of the budget is regularly over-budget each year with the Department for Education picking up the (overdrawn) bill. In reality this means that tax-paying parents and residents will pick up the bill with rising interest repayments.
This was not a luxury project - it was a crucial investment in our children's futures. With local secondary school places under severe strain, the scrapped expansion represents a 300-place black hole, leaving children with fewer local options come September. Parents are already reporting distress - being forced to send their children miles away from home to places like Broadoak in Partington.
**Key Background**
- Consultation began in March 2024, with formal planning submitted in Spring 2024. The remit was to raise Year 7 intake from 175 to 235 eventually reaching an extra 300 places across five years.
- Planning consent was granted in September 2024 after multiple revisions due to Green Belt and Sport England objections.
- By June 2025, skyrocketing costs and contractor collapse led to the expansion being paused - and now scrapped.
**What Next?**
In September those additional school places will not be available, meaning the current situation of pupils being placed far from home is highly likely to continue and may even worsen. Trafford Council's administration claim that the shortfall in places will be mitigated by the planned expansion of Sale High School, and proposed expansion of North Cestrian. This is not the case as neither development is 100% certain to go ahead, and these expansions were originally planned alongside the expansion of Altrincham College, not instead of Altrincham College. With the failure to provide these additional school places at Altrincham College, residents may also ask: how can we be sure that proposed expansions at Sale High School and North Cestrian won't also end in failure and cancellation?
Additionally, these financial failings are likely to have an adverse impact on the Council's overall budget. The shocking decision to load £2 million of wasted expenditure onto the education grant means that Trafford residents will directly foot devades of interest payments as overdraft rolls continue.
This is not just a construction failure - it's a strategic collapse, betraying families, taxpayers, and local children. Residents are right to demand immediate transparency, accountability for those responsible, and a swift reversal of the financial burden they are now forced to bear.
This is a huge disappointment as Conservative Deputy Group Leader Councillor Phil Eckersley made clear in the following statement:
"This was a project to serve children - 300 local families counted on it. To watch it collapse after £2 million of public money was wasted is nothing short of disgraceful."
Conservative Group Leader Councillor Nathan Evans also expressed his vexation:
"The decision to force this cost onto the Direct Schools Grant overdraft is cruel. It's Trafford Council gambling with residents' money - and misplaying the hand entirely."
Trafford Conservatives share the disgust of outraged Trafford residents, and therefore demand that there is:
- A full audit of all planning expenditures tied to the project
- Immediate debt relief so that interest doesn't erode the education grant
- A clear timetable for alternative provision of 300 school places before September 2025
- A commitment to better fiscal governance under Labour's leadership.