A HEAD teacher has warned that the future of schools and other facilities are at risk in south Shropshire.

Alan Doust, head teacher at the Bishop's Castle Community College, is especially concerned about the prospects for the SpArC centre, its swimming pool and arts complex.

“In south Shropshire we have a declining demographic - there fewer people, fewer families, fewer children,” he said.

“For schools this means falling rolls, which in turn means less funding, which then makes curriculum delivery difficult and even raises the question of long-term sustainability for some schools.

“At the heart of our concern is the quality of education for our rural students. At this rate, students in this area may have to be in bigger classes, may have less curriculum choice, may have fewer support services, such as counselling that they can draw on."

Mr Doust said he was especially worried about the future for SpArC.

“The Community College has been informed of the reduction in joint use funding.

“This is money that comes into school to help pay for the SpArC. Currently we pay for 40% of the heating, lighting and basic maintenance of the buildings.

“From April our budget will be cut by 25% per annum. In the future the school will be unable to contribute to the cost of running SpArC.

“My guess would be that the swimming pool would be first to go - threatening primary school swimming and quality of PE education for rural teenagers.”

Teme Leisure say that the removal of joint funding over the next four years could make the SpArC facility unviable and that this would leave the community and hundreds of school children without access to facilities such as the swimming pool.

Enterprise South West Shropshire and SpArC Arts say that 50,000 people a year use the building and they have concerns about the ability to continue to deliver services because of the cuts.