Reverse the Cancellation: Build the Dallington Grange Secondary School NOW!
The Issue
The rapid expansion of North-West Northamptonshire is bringing thousands of new families to our community, but the vital infrastructure needed to support them has been quietly pulled out from under us.
In December 2025, the Department for Education (DfE) cancelled the planned 900-place free secondary school at Dallington Grange. This short-sighted decision ignores the reality on the ground and puts our children’s safety, education, and well-being at risk.
The Reality of the Numbers: With ongoing developments at Dallington Grange, Northampton West, Buckton Fields, and Norwood Farm, over 8,650 new homes are being built in this localized area. Standard formulas prove these homes will natively generate over 1,700 secondary school pupils. Where are they supposed to go?
The Crisis We Face:
- Unsafe Commutes: Without a local school, children in Dallington Grange are being reassigned to Kingsthorpe College. This demands a gruelling 3.5-mile, 90-minute walk each way, forcing young students to navigate high-traffic intersections without dedicated active travel corridors.
- Breaking Point for Existing Schools: Neighbouring secondary schools, such as The Duston School, are already operating at or near maximum capacity. Forcing hundreds of displaced students into these schools will bloat class sizes and erode educational standards for everyone.
- Traffic & Environmental Strain: Pushing families to drive their children out of the estate every morning will trigger massive vehicle congestion along the new Northwestern Ring Road (NWRR) and Harlestone Road, ruining local air quality.
- Risk to build more homes: We must secure the designated school site immediately. If the reservation is allowed to lapse, the land will likely revert to the developer to accommodate an additional 300 to 400 homes. This would permanently erase the opportunity for a localized secondary school and add hundreds of more residents to an already breaking system.
Under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996, the council has a statutory obligation to secure sufficient, accessible, and safe local school places. Relying on regional "macro-level" data to pretend there are enough places is a failure of leadership.
Our Demands: We are calling on West Northamptonshire Council and Education Minister Lucy Powell to immediately review the cancellation of the Dallington Grange secondary school. WNC must legally protect and lock the Dallington Grange site for educational use in the upcoming West Northamptonshire Local Plan before it is lost to residential development.
Our community is growing, and our children deserve a safe, local, and fully supported education.
Sign the petition today to demand localized education infrastructure for North-West Northamptonshire!
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The Issue
The rapid expansion of North-West Northamptonshire is bringing thousands of new families to our community, but the vital infrastructure needed to support them has been quietly pulled out from under us.
In December 2025, the Department for Education (DfE) cancelled the planned 900-place free secondary school at Dallington Grange. This short-sighted decision ignores the reality on the ground and puts our children’s safety, education, and well-being at risk.
The Reality of the Numbers: With ongoing developments at Dallington Grange, Northampton West, Buckton Fields, and Norwood Farm, over 8,650 new homes are being built in this localized area. Standard formulas prove these homes will natively generate over 1,700 secondary school pupils. Where are they supposed to go?
The Crisis We Face:
- Unsafe Commutes: Without a local school, children in Dallington Grange are being reassigned to Kingsthorpe College. This demands a gruelling 3.5-mile, 90-minute walk each way, forcing young students to navigate high-traffic intersections without dedicated active travel corridors.
- Breaking Point for Existing Schools: Neighbouring secondary schools, such as The Duston School, are already operating at or near maximum capacity. Forcing hundreds of displaced students into these schools will bloat class sizes and erode educational standards for everyone.
- Traffic & Environmental Strain: Pushing families to drive their children out of the estate every morning will trigger massive vehicle congestion along the new Northwestern Ring Road (NWRR) and Harlestone Road, ruining local air quality.
- Risk to build more homes: We must secure the designated school site immediately. If the reservation is allowed to lapse, the land will likely revert to the developer to accommodate an additional 300 to 400 homes. This would permanently erase the opportunity for a localized secondary school and add hundreds of more residents to an already breaking system.
Under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996, the council has a statutory obligation to secure sufficient, accessible, and safe local school places. Relying on regional "macro-level" data to pretend there are enough places is a failure of leadership.
Our Demands: We are calling on West Northamptonshire Council and Education Minister Lucy Powell to immediately review the cancellation of the Dallington Grange secondary school. WNC must legally protect and lock the Dallington Grange site for educational use in the upcoming West Northamptonshire Local Plan before it is lost to residential development.
Our community is growing, and our children deserve a safe, local, and fully supported education.
Sign the petition today to demand localized education infrastructure for North-West Northamptonshire!
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Petition created on 27 September 2026