College leaders in west Yorkshire have vowed to fight proposed new free schools in the region, warning that the “unnecessary” competition will provide a “significant risk” to their viability.
Five colleges from the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges have written to the Department for Education’s free school assessment team opposing a series of planned new free schools in the region that the colleges claim are “destabilising”.
The latest wave of free school applications include two in Bradford – a BRIT School North and iExel Elite STEM Sixth Form College for Females; a Northern Technology Sixth Form in Kirklees, Edith Cavell College in Wakefield; and for Keighley a New College Keighley.
In Leeds, two applications have been lodged – Dixons East Leeds Sixth Form and Thorpe Park College.
