Government departments at loggerheads over free schools planning permission

The Department for Transport (DfT) has blocked proposed changes to planning laws intended to facilitate the creation of free schools in existing buildings, according to a report in the Financial Times.

The Department for Education (DfE) had proposed reducing the right of local authorities to refuse planning applications for the conversion of existing premises to free schools on traffic congestion grounds. However, the DfT is understood be strongly opposed to the plans, says the FT.

Presently, applications to convert existing buildings schools normally require a traffic plan to prove that a new school would not cause unacceptable traffic problems. The Academies Act, passed in July, removed the power of local authorities to oppose free schools on educational grounds.

The DfE's plans – which are due to be set out in a new education white paper later in the autumn – would also see restrictions on the design of new schools relaxed, again with the intention of making it easier to establish free schools.

Rachel Wolf, director of the New Schools Network, a charity that has received government funding to help free-school groups, told the FT that “planning changes are the difference between a few new schools mostly in areas with favourable local authorities and significant scale in the areas which need it most”.

A spokes person for the DfT told the Financial Times: “In a functioning government, discussion between departments in order to ensure all issues are properly considered is routine.”