Thousands of school places left unfilled across West Northants due to falling birthrates

Falling birthrates throughout the last decade have led to thousands of school places being left empty across West Northamptonshire. Demand forecasts continue to point to a decline in pupil numbers over the next five years according to the local authority.

West Northants Council (WNC) has revealed that up to a quarter of the region’s reception school places are in surplus. Council officers have warned of the knock-on effect of the financial implications from plummeting pupil numbers on school budgets.

According to data published at the start of March 2025, across all primary schools, one in ten places in the classroom have not been filled with a child. In some local areas, this surplus level is as high as 30 per cent.

The Department for Education (DfE) advises that any local area should have around three to five per cent surplus capacity of school places at any time. Though secondary school statistics are on track measuring a three per cent surplus, WNC has reported that the need for primary places will continue to fall into the future, with changes seen most evidently in rural areas.

There are currently 855 extra spaces in West Northants secondary schools and 3,896 empty spots in primary.

At a children, education and housing scrutiny meeting held in March, Assistant Director for education Ben Pearson said the reduced reception applications were one of the authority’s “biggest concerns”.

“Where that is going to lead to very quickly is schools telling us that they are not financially viable and they are going to have to be looking at things like redundancies,” he explained, “We don’t want to be there at all. We’re working with groups of schools to prevent that, but I need to flag that those risks are coming.”

Mr Pearson added that the council was critical of all planning applications offering to build a new school and would continue to turn down proposals that would impact other cohorts in the area. According to the authority, it has recently improved the way in which school places are forecast and currently has a 98 per cent accuracy rate in trends verified by the DfE.

He also stated that the freed-up classroom space could be transformed into a positive and create “huge opportunities” for SEND and alternative provision, looking at how the surplus resources could be repurposed.

Alongside the reduced school applications, there is an increasing number of children being taught at home. There are currently 1,169 children being electively home-educated, with 329 children being taken out of school since September 2024.