Dozens of schools fail to adopt weather plans

Only 31 of the 77 schools in West Berkshire have adopted a severe weather plan ahead of the winter period

ALMOST half of the schools in West Berkshire are yet to respond to the local authority's request to implement a severe weather plan, to minimise school closures during the winter.

Each local authority school in the district - 66 primary schools, seven secondary schools, two nurseries and two special schools - were sent letters by West Berkshire Council in August urging them to put in place a severe weather plan.

The council wants each school to adopt a plan to avoid a repeat of the past two winters in which many schools closed after heavy snowfall.

So far only 31 of the 77 schools have confirmed they have a severe weather plan in place with just ten saying they were preparing new plans.

At a recent meeting of West Berkshire's Overview and Scrutiny Management Commission, councillors urged their officers to make sure all schools implement a plan before winter starts.

“I don't think we have a grip on this,” said David Holtby (Con, Hungerford). “The need to have a plan in place is beyond doubt.

“We need to continue to drive this forward and establish those schools that have a plan in place and those that don't.”

Jeff Brooks (Lib Dem, Thatcham West) said the council could only “urge” schools to adopt a plan, not tell them.

The council's education assets manager, Mark Lewis, said his department was ”progressing as fast as they can” and had now updated its severe weather plan template and sent to all chair of governors in the district.