A school in Walney will close from the end of the academic year.

Members of the cabinet for Westmorland and Furness Council have approved proposals to close North Walney Nursery and Primary School on August 31.

As of February 28 there were no children remaining on roll at the school as parents/carers have opted to apply for new school places in the area.

Cabinet member for finance, councillor Andrew Jarvis said: “I’m sure all of cabinet do not make a decision about closing a school lightly, it’s always a difficult situation.

“I think in this particular case closure is clearly appropriate given the fact all the parents/carers have already found provision for their children in other schools.

“This demonstrates clearly that there are alternative appropriate schooling options for children so I’m happy to support it.”

A statutory representation period ran on the proposed closure ran from February 5 to March 3 in which the council received one response.

Among issues raised, the response queried why the school was being closed in the context of indicative housing developments in Barrow as a result of the BAE expansion.

In response, the council said in a report prepared for the meeting: “The housing developments referenced have been considered as part of our assessment of future pupil projections and yield. There are sufficient surplus places in the local area to accommodate any additional pupil yields resulting from these developments.”

In a report prepared for the cabinet meeting on March 26, it states the school has continued to provide a ‘quality educational offer’ during what has proven to have been a ‘challenging period’ for the school.

Numbers at the primary school dropped from 84 in 2019/2020 to 27 as of September 2023 and there is a ‘significant’ number of surplus places in the Walney Island area, a council report prepared for the Furness locality board in November said.

School budgets are directly linked to the number of children at a school so when numbers decrease there is less money available to support teaching and this makes it ‘increasingly challenging’ to provide a ‘broad and balanced quality educational offer’, it added.

The report said: “The local authority is concerned that the school’s current financial position is increasing the workload on school staff to levels that the council believes is reaching an unsustainable level.

“This will inevitably impact on teaching standards and would likely give a reduced rating under the current Ofsted inspection framework.

“The local authority is concerned that staffing instability and funding have also hampered development of leadership at subject level and impacted on the professional development, workload and well-being of staff.”