Creating a fairer Salford by:
- Maximising the ability of all residents to acquire knowledge and skills throughout their lives, thereby enabling them to take advantage of the varied social and economic opportunities available
- Enabling all children to have a good start in life through the provision of appropriate early years facilities
- Ensuring appropriate provision of school places throughout the city, so that all children can enjoy a high quality education
- Delivering opportunities for adult learning, including through apprenticeships and work-related training
- Maximising the benefits of the University of Salford for the city
14.1 Learning is transformative. It opens up new opportunities for people, not just in terms of jobs but also the ability to pursue interests and make new connections. It empowers people to make more active choices and protect their rights, as well as to adapt to changes in society and in their environment. The act of learning itself can make us more positive and reduce social isolation, and the results can improve health and wellbeing. Learning will be key to the move towards a more sustainable city, tackling deprivation, supporting economic growth and delivering social value.
14.2 In this context, delivering a learning city needs to be all-embracing. Academic learning will be a central component, but the concept extends beyond formal education to include learning opportunities throughout our lives, from early years learning to apprenticeships and work-related training, and through to increased participation of older people.
14.3 Whilst there have been some considerable improvements in educational performance in recent years, Salford remains below the national average for key indicators and there are also large disparities in educational attainment across the city. Improving educational performance will depend on a very wide range of factors, many of which are outside the influence of planning, but the continuing enhancement of education facilities will have an important role to play.
Policy ED1 - A learning city
Salford will be developed as a learning city, including by:
- Seeking to integrate learning opportunities in all aspects of development, such as enabling people to understand better their natural environment and local history
- Enabling an appropriate supply of local early years provision such as nurseries
- Ensuring that additional school places are provided to meet growing demand, supported by financial contributions from new residential developments
- Facilitating the continued enhancement of the University of Salford and Salford City College, and capturing the benefits of their research
- Supporting the development of new training facilities, including within existing employment areas, and the provision of apprenticeships
- Encouraging developers to sign up to the City Mayor’s Employment Charter, including committing to creating training opportunities for Salford people and particularly for the long-term unemployed, young people not in education, work or training, looked after children, and lone parents
- Promoting artistic and cultural activity, enabling the expression of ideas
- Providing high quality new homes that can help to attract and retain skilled workers
- Promoting the integration of ‘smart city’ technology within buildings and spaces, to facilitate the more efficient and effective management of the built environment for the benefit of residents and businesses
Schools and further education
14.4 The demand for school places in an area can change quite rapidly, not just because of the impacts of new housing, but also due to changes in the birth rate and the type of households migrating into and out of the city. Over recent years, Salford has experienced a very significant increase in the requirement for primary school places, and this is now starting to cascade through to the secondary sector. The scale of new housing development that Salford is planning for over the plan period will create an additional requirement for pupil places over and above this, and taken together will require significant further expansion across both the primary and secondary sectors. This is likely to involve both the extension of existing schools and the provision of new buildings, responding to changing patterns of demand and the Government’s commitment to widening educational choice.
14.5 It is not appropriate for the Local Plan to seek to plan for school provision in detail, as any proposals are likely to date very quickly. The focus is therefore on enabling the continued improvement of school facilities, managing the impacts of such development, and securing appropriate developer contributions to the provision of additional school places.
14.6 Delivering improvements in education facilities is likely to require a reasonably flexible approach given the availability of sites and the competing demands for land resources in Salford. Nevertheless, it will be important to ensure that schools and further education facilities function effectively in the long-term, and do not suffer from locational or design failings that significantly constrain their ability to deliver improved learning outcomes. It will also be important to ensure that education facilities are welcomed by the surrounding communities rather than having a significant negative impact on them, for example by enabling facilities to be used as a community resource and addressing concerns about transportation issues such as car parking.
Policy ED2 - Schools and further education facilities
Improvements in the quality and accessibility of schools and further education facilities will be supported.
New schools and further education facilities shall:
- Be highly accessible to their intended catchments, particularly by walking, cycling and public transport;
- Be located, designed and managed to minimise the impacts of associated traffic and car parking on the surrounding area;
- Provide high quality indoor and outdoor facilities suitable for the intended number and age range of students; and
- Wherever practicable and appropriate, provide for the community use of playing fields and other school facilities.
A flexible approach will be taken to the reuse and redevelopment of redundant school and further education sites, particularly where this would support the provision or improvement of education facilities elsewhere in the city. Such sites may be protected for educational use where this is necessary to secure an appropriate scale and distribution of education facilities to meet future needs.
Residential development and school places
14.7 It will be vital to the sustainability of local neighbourhoods that new housing developments support the delivery of the additional school places for which they generate the demand, otherwise there may be problems of school overcrowding and students may need to travel long distances to school. The preferred approach is usually to expand schools on their existing sites, but this is likely to be increasingly difficult as many buildings have already seen recent extensions. Consequently, some developments will need to incorporate additional school provision within their sites, and this is a requirement of two of the larger housing site allocations in this plan (H9/2 Castle Irwell and H9/4 Brackley golf course).
Policy ED3 - Residential development and school places
Where a residential development would contribute to a projected shortfall in school places, it shall enable an increase in school places proportionate to the number of pupils that it is likely to accommodate. This will typically involve making a financial contribution to the expansion of an existing school or additional school provision.
Where additional school provision is required as a result of a new development, either individually or cumulatively, and the city council does not have control over a suitable and available site that would be very accessible to the development, then land should be set aside for such provision within the development. If this is not possible, then development will not be permitted until an appropriate supply of school places can be guaranteed in the local area.
In all cases, development shall be phased so that the school places are delivered before demand exceeds existing capacity.
University of Salford
14.8 Universities have a key role to play in supporting a learning city and economic growth, not just in terms of increasing the number of people with high level qualifications but also through their research activities, links to the business community and the creation of spin-off companies. The University of Salford currently has around 19,000 students, with a strong reputation for delivering high quality teaching, undertaking world-class research, and facilitating business enterprise. The university is a hugely important institution for the city, and one of its largest employers, making a significant contribution to the local economy. It forms part of a much larger concentration of student and academic activity at the heart of Greater Manchester, with the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University only a short distance away.
14.9 The University of Salford is particularly well-located to take advantage of, and support, the economic growth opportunities in the city, with its main Peel Park and Frederick Road campus located at the western end of the City Centre, and its MediaCityUK campus at the heart of the concentration of media and digital industries in Salford Quays. There are numerous opportunities within the employment areas around these campuses to significantly increase the scale of business activity associated with the university, including at Salford Innovation Park (allocation EC5/2).
14.10 The University of Salford is delivering a transformational programme to enhance its facilities, particularly within the Peel Park and Frederick Road Campus, which will enable it to compete successfully for students and offer the best possible learning environment. It will be important to carefully manage improvements so that their benefits for Salford are maximised and any adverse impacts on surrounding areas are minimised. The use of a clear development strategy, produced by the university in consultation with key stakeholders, will help to ensure that activity is properly coordinated. Enhancing the accessibility of the university campuses, including movements between them, and managing traffic impacts will be a central component of this. Policy H11 seeks to ensure that an appropriate scale and quality of student accommodation is available within and close to the campuses.
Policy ED4 - University of Salford
The continued enhancement of the facilities and campuses of the University of Salford will be supported.
Development proposals for the university shall:
- Form part of a comprehensive development strategy that will ensure that the continued evolution of the university estate is properly coordinated and managed;
- Support an increase in the proportion of staff, students and visitors who access the university, and move between its campuses, by public transport, cycling and walking;
- Take advantage of opportunities for greening the campus environment; and
- Seek to promote links between business sectors and the university’s skills and research strengths in support of the university’s Industrial Collaboration Zone aspirations, with the further enhancement of the Salford Innovation Park providing a particular opportunity in this regard.
Development proposals for the Peel Park and Frederick Road campus shall:
- Significantly enhance the overall attractiveness of the campus to students, residents and visitors in terms of the quality of new built development, public realm and the overall vibrancy of the area;
- Improve the physical and functional integration of the campus with its surroundings, through working with partners to improve connectivity with the wider City Centre and enhancing key shared access points into the campus and other facilities such as Peel Park;
- Enhance pedestrian and cycling routes through the campus and onwards to surrounding areas;
- Minimise the negative impacts of traffic and parking within the campus and on the surrounding area, and significantly reduce the amount of land used for car parking; and
- Contribute towards the development of a Cultural Gateway, focused around Salford Museum and Art Gallery and Fire Station Square, with the latter being animated by new cultural and food and drink uses.
Monitoring
14.11 The main indicator that will be used to monitor this chapter is:
|
Indicator |
Target |
|---|---|
|
Surplus number of school places in each pupil planning area |
5% each year (2018-2037) |