New action plan to save UTC Lancashire from closure backed by 50 parents

At a meeting of parents of students at the Burnley campus, plans were put together to at the “very least” delay the college’s closure until new backers can be found.

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Former Burnley MP Gordon Birtwistle has pledged to raise the issue with ministers in the Department for Education and find a way to increase the Universal Technical College’s catchment area in a bid to attract more pupils.

Last week bosses announced that it will close on August 31 after being open for only two years. They cited low student numbers, making the college financially unviable.

A petition has since been set up by 15-year-old student George Speak, which has already been backed by more than 1,200 people.

Mr Birtwistle said: “It was a very productive meeting and it was good to get the backing from parents. I will raise this with Nick Boles, a minister at the Department for Education, and see what we can do.

“Maybe trying to get students to the UTC from a wider area will be a solution.

“We will do all we can to try and keep it open.”

Current Burnley MP Julie Cooper will hold a meeting at the UTC on Saturday from 10am to update parents on her work at Westminster to save the UTC.

Parents have expressed their concern over finding a place for their teenager at another school at short notice.

Arlene Cunliffe, whose daughter Tamzin is in Year 10 at the UTC, said: “This does not leave us long to try and fight for the school to remain open for these students to fulfil their GCSE years without any interruption or disruption.

“The closure of the school will have a detrimental effect on both the pupils’ progress and potential grades, due to one of the facts that they have missed a year of the ‘usual’ subjects which a mainstream school insists pupils take.

“She and her peers therefore cannot re-enter a mainstream school and be expected to follow a new curriculum and fulfil their GCSE examinations to the expected standard.”