FRESH calls have come for a rethink over a £250 million programme to reshape education.

Counter-proposals to the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme have been submitted for debate today to Stoke-on-Trent City Council's cabinet by a scrutiny committee.

The existing scheme, signed off by the cabinet last month, is to replace seven schools with five academies and shut one special school.

That strategy involves building an academy in either Park Hall or Springfield, Adderley Green, to replace the Mitchell and Edensor high schools, while Berry Hill would feed into a different academy in Fenton.

Now, after facing fresh criticism from councillors and Stoke-on-Trent Central MP Mark Fisher, the cabinet has been asked to discuss changing the scheme to merge Mitchell and Berry Hill on the existing Mitchell Business and Enterprise College site in Bucknall.

Speaking to a special meeting of the Children's and Young People's Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Berry Hill and Hanley East councillor John Davis, pictured, said: "The common sense answer would be to join the two local high schools in Bucknall to form a new community school on the Mitchell site.

"The existing proposals will remove two high schools from within our community and build an alternative site outside our area. The location at Mitchell is ideal for a high school.

"It has plenty of ground, two separate access points, is near a bus route and is easily reached from our estates."

In a letter to the city council, Mr Fisher said: "Park Hall is over two-and-a-half miles from Mitchell up a long, slow incline and many pupils come from the Townsend/Bucknall area, a further quarter-mile away from either Park Hall or Springfield. I walked it three weeks ago and it took 50 minutes."

He added parents and teachers at Mitchell and Berry Hill accepted neither was big enough, and backed a merger on the Mitchell site.

Councillor Adrian Knapper said: "This city council has strong plans regarding regeneration. These new communities we are building up are not going to be served by a community school. The current plans are going to be detrimental to the future of the city."

The existing plans were called in for scrutiny after some council members said the consultation process was flawed. They claimed a 537-name petition and a public vote against the closure plans were ignored.

The city council's deputy director of children and young people's services, Nigel Tootill refuted the allegations. He said the petition was submitted after a final deadline for representations and that all views had been taken into account.

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