DETERMINED LOCALS have vowed to keep fighting against a new £17 million secondary school in Diggle after Oldham Council announced final legal agreements have been signed.
The option agreement enables the local authority to complete the purchase of the site at Huddersfield Road at any time, which will be done if Interserve obtains planning permission this summer.
Detailed design meetings will now take place to draw up vital works needed in Diggle so the Education Funding Agency (EFA) can provide the new school for 1,500 pupils aged 11-16 years old.
These include carriageway and footpath widening works, the introduction of a School Safety Zone, the development of a residents’ car park and fencing work.
But residents from across the community attended a Diggle Community Association meeting to voice their concerns over the school’s move from Uppermill.
One worried resident commented: “It is going to be a blot on the landscape for years. This decision will affect generations to come and it looks like a very poor legacy to leave.
“Our feelings have not been considered by Oldham Council and it shows their arrogance not to consider local people in this huge decision. It feels as though local democracy is dead.”
Another added: “We want a school that is safe for our children. It is not safe for them walking into Diggle.”
Save Diggle Action Group (SDAG) has put forward plans for redevelopment of the school in Uppermill and insists they will continue to push for this option.
Mike Buckley, spokesperson for SDAG and an independent Saddleworth Parish councillor, said: “It is only done when the planning is approved and that is months away.
“An awful lot of things are up in the air and there don’t seem to be very clear plans on anything. Things are just being reassessed as we go along and that’s no good.
“It is scandalous that decisions are being made without the full information on both sites being analysed and available.
“We are continuing in a very polite and constructive manner with Oldham Council and the EFA and we are going to fight this to the last.”
But Cllr Alan Roughley said people should accept Diggle is the preferred site to build on or risk losing a new school for the area.
“The EFA are offering a deal which many other places in the country have not got. We have to take this or we are not likely to get a new school again,” he said.
“I have not said Diggle is an ideal site or that we should build it there – but we have to go where the EFA want to build it and this is the site they have accepted.
“I will support a new school where ever it is built as I think it is important that we get a new school for Saddleworth.”
Cllr Garth Harkness added: “The EFA has come close on occasions to pulling the plug and saying ‘let’s not give you a school at all’.
“They want to build on the Diggle site and we might not like it but it is the only option. If we want a new school it is going to be on that site.”
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